City says despite aid Kramat Tunggak never shared profits

City says despite aid Kramat Tunggak never shared profits

JAKARTA (JP): As controversy continues over the legality of
the centralization of prostitution activities, the city
administration said on Monday that businesses in the capital's
oldest red-light district never paid income tax to the city.

"The city administration even allocated funds for
rehabilitation programs at the brothel complex every year," head
of the city's social agency Edi Widodo told reporters at the City
Council concerning Kramat Tunggak in North Jakarta.

He did not mention the amount of funding taken from the city
budget for the programs.

Edi said the city administration never demanded that owners of
the 221 brothels in the complex pay their taxes, except for
property taxes which were required of all home owners in the
city.

He said the funding was allocated for vocational training for
the prostitutes to prepare them for the closure of the 10.4-
hectare brothel complex.

The complex will be closed by the administration on Dec. 8,
the day before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadhan begins.

"The fund was also allocated for the prostitutes' free medical
health treatment, including monthly injections at a nearby
clinic, as a preventative measure against them contracting
sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)."

Edi dismissed speculation the administration stopped the free-
injection service beginning last month, following the
announcement of the plan to close the complex.

He said that between 5 percent and 10 percent of the 350
prostitutes working in the brothels were infected with STDs,
including syphilis and gonorrhea.

The social agency office has not recorded any cases of
prostitutes suffering from HIV or AIDS, he added.

Edi said the administration would conduct periodic raids
against street prostitutes soon after the closure of the brothel
complex.

"The prostitutes will be sent to a rehabilitation center in
Pasar Rebo, East Jakarta, or to another rehabilitation center,
which will be built next year on a one-hectare plot in Kedoya
subdistrict, West Jakarta."

He renewed the city administration's commitment to also close
illegal brothel complexes in the city, such as Kalijodo in West
Jakarta and Boker in East Jakarta.

Suggestion

Consumer protection advocate Zoemrotin K. Soesilo said the
city administration should not hesitate to reopen Kramat Tunggak
if its closure proved ineffective in fighting the capital's
prostitution problem.

"The government must observe the impact of the closure within
six months," she said in addressing a seminar on the impact of
the closure of Kramat Tunggak, held at Hotel Danau Sunter in
North Jakarta.

"If the prostitution problem gets worse, the government should
consider reopening the red-light district."

The former chairwoman of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation
(YLKI) said the city needed to tackle the root of the problem.

"Poverty is a source of prostitution. The government must
improve the people's welfare if it wants to resolve the
prostitution problems."

Another speaker, Subagio Partodihardjo, said the spread of
STDs could not be controlled if the administration went ahead
with the closing of the brothel complex.

"It's easy to provide lectures or conduct mass treatment if
the prostitutes remain in the complex," said Subagio, a doctor
and chairman of the Karya Bakti Foundation, the institution which
regularly conducts checkups of prostitutes in Kramat Tunggak.
(jun/asa)