68 foreign sex workers arrested

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Sixty-eight foreign sex workers were apprehended in raids on a number of nightclubs, saunas and beauty salons here on Tuesday evening, police said on Wednesday.

City police spokesman Sr. Comr. Tjiptono said that all of the foreigners had misused their visas by working as sex workers in the country. Some of them were holding expired visas.

"They pretended to be employees of nightclubs, saunas or salons to fool authorities," Tjiptono said.

He said the women would be deported as soon as possible.

"They are under our jurisdiction and we will hand them over to the Immigration Office for immigration offenses," he told The Jakarta Post.

The raids, conducted under the Kencana Pura operation, are the first against foreign sex workers in the capital.

Tjiptono said the Immigration Office would likely send them back to their respective countries.

He said five of the 68 women's visas had expired, while the rest were on tourist visas.

"Five women are from Uzbekistan and Russia, while the others come from China. We suspect many other illegal workers operate in Indonesia," he said.

Nine Chinese women were arrested at the Golden Flower and Classic discotheques in Central Jakarta and another five Chinese sex workers at the Emporium.

The Central Jakarta Police nabbed five Russian and Uzbek women in the Golden hotel on Jl. Gunung Sahari, Central Jakarta.

North Jakarta Police arrested 23 Chinese women in Hai-Lai, Sumo, Sands and Thematic discotheques, while the West Jakarta police apprehended 26 Chinese women in Rajamas and Olympic discotheques, Top Link Salon and Baverly Hills Sauna.

"We will continue to launch operations to rid Jakarta of illegal workers and prostitutes over the next month. If we still receive reports about the existence of such foreigners, we will conduct similar operations," Tjiptono said.

Even though it has been an open secret for many years that foreign sex workers were available in the capital, little has been done by the Immigration Office and the police to eliminate them.