Children of Dolly face dark, uncertain future

ID Nugroho, Surabaya

It was a Tuesday afternoon and the sun was beating down, but that did not stop 11-year-old Slamet (not his real name) from playing soccer with three of his friends in the parking lot of an old movie theater on Jl. Jarak in Surabaya. He enthusiastically kicked the ball and shouted "Gooallll!!!" as he ran around laughing.

Eight-year-old Yani (not her real name) chose to play dolls with her friend Wiwin (also not her real name) in front of a store on Jl. Putat Jaya Gang Lebar.

The two girls took a break from their dolls to try and put some powder on their faces. They seemed to be enjoying themselves as they sipped melon juice from plastic bags.

Slamet, Yani and their friends are portraits of children living in the well-known Dolly prostitution complex in Surabaya. Located on Jl. Kupang in Putat Jaya subdistrict, Sawahan district, Dolly, which is called the biggest prostitution complex in Southeast Asia, has approximately 60 guest-houses and stores.

Inside the guest-houses are small rooms and thousands of prostitutes. There are no actual records on the number of prostitutes, but some say it reaches 1,500.

Dolly is filled with loud music and alcohol every night. It is also where about 3,000 children live, grow up and make friends.

What is sadder, according to the Indonesian Vision Forum Foundation, is that many of the children in the complex suffer from malnutrition, as they mostly eat junk food, snacks and soft drinks.

Another concern, according to Johny R.M. Sirait, chairman of the foundation, is that there is no distance between the children and the prostitutes.

This lack of distance, Johny said, means the children "grow up faster and are more mature" than other children their age.

"In a play group that we formed, there was a clear difference. The children who grew up in the (Dolly) complex were more expressive, even using dirty words that they had heard," he said.

And not surprisingly, some of the children have tried to have sex with the prostitutes, said Johny.

Suchbahani, the principal of state elementary school SDN Putat Jaya 1, which is located close to the prostitution complex, expressed similar concerns.

"There was this one child who lived in the complex. He liked to draw dirty pictures and then show them to his friends, who then reported it to their teachers," Suchbahani said.

This, he said, was the result of what the children saw all around them in Dolly.

"One child even admitted that he saw a woman having sexual intercourse with a man," he said.

Ironically, he said, their parents, who are supposed to keep them from such situations, think that this is normal and object when their children are expelled from school for this kind of behavior.

The 18-year-old Wawan (not his real name) is a perfect example. His mother is a pimp in the complex. Instead of trying to raise her son in a different kind of environment, Wawan's mother only told him not to have sex with the prostitutes in Dolly. "If you want to do it, do it outside (the complex)," he said his mother told him.

Wawan may be luckier than 19-year-old Nunung, who does not know who his father is. "Ever since he was a child, he has been taken care of by a local resident," said a teacher who asked not to be named.

Sadly, most of the children develop drinking problems and drop out of school because of their surroundings.

Their lack of education makes them vulnerable to sexual exploitation and contracting sexually transmitted diseases, as they do not understand the dangers.

One can only imagine how tough these children's lives are -- as hot as the heat of the afternoon sun that beat down on Slamet and his friends as they played soccer.