Appeals alone won't stop child prostitution

JAKARTA (JP): The First Lady said on Wednesday that moral appeals alone would not solve child prostitution.

Opening a one-day workshop on the sexual exploitation of young girls, Sinta Nuriyah said that solutions focusing on morals and religion, "without understanding gender relationships within families, in which girls are more often victims" would not solve the real problem.

Workshop organizers from the Center of Community Development Studies at Atmajaya Catholic University said they were focusing on female sexual exploitation because its causes were "different".

The belief that having sex with youngsters is safer and the needs of poor families to survive the economic crisis have both led to the increase in child sex workers, the First Lady said.

Latest estimates from researchers show there are at least 40,000 girls under 18 working as sex workers.

"... the possibility of an increase in child sex workers has been predicted by (health expert) Ibu Nafsiah Mboy", bearing in mind the shift of sex tourists to Indonesia from Thailand, Nuriyah said.

Campaigns against the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) have led to a "false" awareness about sexual behavior, she said. People who previously did not care about a partner's age are now choosing children, she added.

Nongovernmental organizations in the workshop charged that Indonesia had broken its promise to the world to protect its children from prostitution.

They called for a national action plan against commercial sex in line with the 1996 Stockholm Convention, which Indonesia was a signatory to.

Participants were obviously affected while watching a play involving child sex workers who described their experiences.

One child, who was depicted as being sold by her father, said, "As poor as my father is, he still has a goat, but he sold me anyway."

Keri Lasmi Sugiarti from Bandung's Bahtera Foundation said, "Society looks at these children not as victims but as garbage." She added that "this kind of discrimination can hamper a child's psychosocial development".

Rosmalinda, a child protection activist, said that staff in her office in Medan, North Sumatra, were frequently intimidated by people who accused her organization of supporting prostitution.

Nongovernmental organizations from Medan, Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Solo and Batam have been working with the problem of child prostitutes for almost one year. (08)