18 prostitutes caught during raid near Monas

18 prostitutes caught during raid near Monas

JAKARTA (JP): Eighteen prostitutes were rounded up on Tuesday
night at the Medan Merdeka Square, Central Jakarta, in a joint
raid by officers of the city's public order office, social
service agency and the police, an official said.

Toha Reno, head of the public facility section of the public
order office, said on Wednesday that besides the prostitutes,
which were aged between 15 and 36, the officers also arrested a
transvestite and two alleged hoodlums.

"(The raid) was conducted from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. The arrested
people are being detained at a city-run social service center,
Bina Karya Bangun Daya 02, in Kedoya, West Jakarta," Toha told
reporters at City Hall.

"They will be further selected by social workers at the center
for training courses, depending on their work skills. They can
possibly even be detained for a longer period."

Medan Merdeka Square, where the National Monument (Monas)
stands, has became the haunt of scores of prostitutes. Most of
them cover up their profession by selling teh botol, a local tea
drink, for Rp 3000, about three times the normal market price.

The women, known as sellers of "teh botol plus", operate from
8:30 p.m. to about 4 a.m. and are usually selective in choosing
buyers for their drinks.

"They will, for instance, sell to men who will allow them to
sit in the car for a while," Toha said.

Toha said that the women on Tuesday night were found attending
to "hidung belang" (a slang term for their customers) and tried
to run away when they realized they were about to be caught.

"Some even tried getting on the back of ojek (motorcycle
taxis) and shouted at the drivers to drive quickly. The officers
chased after and caught them," Toha said.

"The women cried. Some said they were married, others said
they were widows. Several of them said they had to feed their
families... and could not do anything."

An officer at the office, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
said the male clients of the prostitutes were not arrested.

"What should we do... they seemed to be from respectable
families," the officer told reporters.

Quoting data from the office, Toha said that the arrested
women claimed to be from various cities, including Ciamis,
Bandung and Bogor in West Java, Semarang, Brebes and Pemalang in
Central Java, Medan in North Sumatra, and South Sumatra and
Kalimantan.

"Two girls, 15 years and 17 old, said they had to send the
money to their families in the cities they lived in... What
could we do?" he said.

Tuesday night's raid was the second one this month. In the
first raid the officers rounded up 28 beggars, 10 men asking for
money for charity in traditional Muslim costumes and eight
vagrants.

"We could not catch prostitutes in the first raid as we were
using official police cars. This time, the officers didn't use
official cars. They used their own cars and acted as customers,"
Toha said.(ylt)