The Jakarta administration has tried several times to offer sex workers ways to escape the sex industry, with varying results. One such example was when city authorities gave speeches at a ceremony at a facility of the social welfare agency where sex workers were attending a dressmaking course. The next day, some papers reported that the women did not return to their villages in Indramayu, West Java, after the course finished, but rather returned to their old lives in Jakarta.

Women working in the prostitution center of Kramat Tunggak, North Jakarta, said that the income from sewing was just too far below sex work.

Former governor Sutiyoso finally managed to close the prostitution site in 2009 and an Islamic center was built in the area.

A high ranking health official had confided to reporters that it would be better to legalize prostitution; closing Kramat Tungga...