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View all search results'Stop prosecuting sex trafficking victims!': Activists lambaste Gerindra lawmaker
A House of Representatives lawmaker, who made a working visit to Padang in late January, reportedly set a trap for an online-based sex worker in a Padang hotel room to reveal publicly that the practice existed in the city.
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A House of Representatives lawmaker from the Gerindra Party, Andre Rosiade, speaks with journalists. (Tribunnews.com/Rizal Bomantama)
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ights activists have urged the West Sumatra Police to stop their legal process against NN, a sex worker currently facing criminal charges after allegedly being entrapped by a lawmaker from the Gerindra Party, Andre Rosiade, in a hotel room in Padang last month, pointing out that the she is actually a victim of unaddressed human trafficking in Indonesia.
The director of the Padang Legal Aid Institute (LBH Padang), Wendra Rona Putra, who represents NN in the case, explained that the 27-year-old single mother was involved in prostitution because she struggled to make a living to support her 2-year-old child in a city far from her home in West Java.
"NN moved to Padang with her aunt to avoid her abusive partner and eventually became a sex worker to make ends meet," Wendra said recently.
He added that NN did not work alone, but had a manager, aka a pimp, who had allegedly recruited her and offered her to customers.
Law enforcers, therefore, should focus more on arresting the sex worker providers and sex buyers to curb prostitution, rather than targeting the sex workers who were merely the objects of the sexual transactions, Wendra said.
Dinna Wisnu from the Human Trafficking Eradication Network said separately that authorities had the obligation to protect trafficked women and children and not prosecute them.
A 2007 law on human trafficking eradication, in fact, recognizes sex workers as victims who suffer psychologically, physically, sexually, financially and socially because of human trafficking. Hence, Dinna said, such women should never be prosecuted.
