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)