Children hustle for prostitutes in Blok M area

By Johannes Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): By the law of averages, a 13-year-old would have very little idea of what was to be his or her future. But one such child, nicknamed Botak, feels he has found his niche in life by loitering on the streets around the Blok M terminal hustling for prostitutes.

All he thinks about every day is how to get enough money to buy beer, cigarettes and daily food.

With a burning cigarette tucked away between his fingers, like any other night he waves his small hand at a car slowly entering the red-light district near the terminal. The car stops. He quickly approaches it and, after a brief discussion with the two men in the car, returns to the prostitutes huddled together on the other side of the road and pulls one by the arm.

The girl first feigns reluctance, whinging while trying to loosen his grip.

"Come on, honey," said Botak, dragging her along by the arm.

Before long, the girl is close to the car and conversing with the two men inside. With a deal having been struck, she slips into the car and it immediately pulls out and sets off to some place known only to the occupants.

Botak, a primary school dropout, greedily counts the tip the men gave him for his "go-between" service.

"It's Monday. A lonely day. Few people come by", the boy tells The Jakarta Post while puffing on his cigarette.

Unlike weekends when the area is alive at night, the streets are rather deserted. Only a few cars are parked on the road. A prostitute comments "all nightlife lovers prefer to stay home due to being too tired after spending all their energy the previous days."

Inside the pubs and discotheques some people are drinking and enjoying the loud music.

Outside, tens of skimpily clad young prostitutes loiter on the street, exchanging obscenities, dreaming of being visited by rich customers.

Every now and then Botak greets the prostitutes who walk past him with "Hi, Sweetheart. Kiss me, please" or "Hi, honey. Why are you aloof tonight?" if one girl refuses to kiss him. He knows all the girls and their regular customers by name. He is even familiar with the type of cars many of customers drive. Sometimes when a car is still some distance away he darts away to find a certain girl, shouting, "Kak..., your boyfriend is coming."

He can earn between Rp 5,000 to Rp 10,000 plus several kisses from the prostitutes in one night.

When Botak first entered the nightlife spot less than a year ago, he was just like any other little boy who "blushes when kissed by girls," said Yanti, a prostitute who still goes to high school in Central Jakarta.

"Now that he hears dirty words and see dirty scenes every night, he cannot restrain his sexual drive any longer. He dares now to demand kisses," she added.

Yanti frequents the nightlife spot in rebellion against her father's immoral conduct, which includes the repeated raping of her eldest sister over a number of years.

There are several young hustlers just like Botak in the area. But the third son of a Metro Mini bus driver living in Ciputat district of South Jakarta, who ran away from home a year ago, seems the most prominent of all -- and feared by his peers -- because of his "big" reputation.

He has been apprehended five times by the police, because of offering his services as a "three-in-one kid" and as a go-between for prostitutes. But each time he was not detained for long. By his account, he once managed to stealthily run away from the police station after getting permission to go the toilet.

"I was once ordered to lie behind the tire of a police car, as a prop they said," he recalled in pride.

In the wee hours, when all the pubs and discotheques close and the prostitutes go home, some of Botak's peers go home with the prostitutes. Botak himself always heads to a nearby mosque where he sleeps.

After sunrise, he goes to the bridge in front of Blok M Plaza and lies there half naked beside a cup which passersby, unaware of who the boy is, put small change into.

Just with begging alone, he earns up to Rp 20,000 a day, which he later shares with his peers for food, cigarettes and beer.

After sunset, he returns to hustling for the prostitutes and an affection kiss every now and then.

At such a tender age, the boy has learned a lot about the art of survival in a violent world: pretending to be a beggar, "selling" women and escaping from the police. What kind of future can people expect of him?