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Govt arrests 32 alleged sex workers in Jakarta, mostly from Vietnam
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Busted -- Ten Chinese and Vietnamese citizens netted in an immigration operation appear at a press conference in Batam, Riau Islands, on Jan. 5. Suspected to be sex workers, they were arrested during two separate operations (JP/Fadli)
T
he Law and Human Rights Ministry announced Friday it had arrested 32 foreigners, allegedly sex workers, violating immigration procedures in numerous entertainment centers in Jakarta proper.
Carried out on Thursday by investigators of the ministry's Immigration Office, the arrests were the second operation in the past three weeks, 137 alleged foreign sex workers have been arrested in total.
Immigration Office's foreign nationals monitoring and law enforcement director Yurod Saleh said 32 suspected female sex workers, mostly from Vietnam, were arrested during a string of raids on Thursday in three entertainment centers in West Jakarta, North Jakarta and Bogor in West Java.
During the raids, investigators confiscated 27 passports of Vietnamese, Kazakh, Chinese, Uzbek, Moroccan and Russian nationals, Rp 5 million in cash, cellphones, contraceptives and karaoke hostess uniforms from the arrested women.
The arrested women have allegedly violated a number of provisions in the 2011 Immigration Law, such as being unable to show a passport when asked by investigators and overstaying a visa, which are stipulated in Article 116 and Article 122, respectively.
"They entered Indonesia using tourist visas and visas on arrival," Yurod told a press conference.
When asked whether investigators had also uncovered the human trafficking networks that sent the arrested alleged sex workers to Indonesia, Yurod said, "investigators are delving into that matter."
Previously, Immigration Office's investigators apprehended 125 suspected foreign female sex workers, mostly Chinese nationals, during a string of raids carried out in numerous cities across the archipelago on New Year's Eve. (evi)
