124 sex workers sent home

JAKARTA: The City Social Agency returned 124 suspected sex workers to their hometowns on Tuesday evening. The women were detained during recent raids on massage parlors in the capital.

The women, between the ages of 14 and 22, were kept at the agency's rehabilitation center in Kedoya, West Jakarta, for about a week before being sent to their hometowns in the Indramayu area of West Java, agency head Endang Widiati Dungga was quoted by beritajakarta.com as saying on Wednesday.

During their stay at the center, they attended religious sermons by a Muslim preacher, and a lecture by a West Jakarta Police officer.

There are still 13 suspected sex workers at the center who were not sent home on Tuesday because they come from Central Java.

Indramayu, which has a divorce rate of about 25 percent, is notorious for its commercial sex workers.--JP