City versus vice
Although Jakarta has yet to gain the reputation of being a sin city like Bangkok and is not likely to do so within the foreseeable future this does not mean that prostitution is not a problem.
Certainly, the number of women involved in prostitution in the capital is not declining. Even so, it cannot be said that our law enforcers have been out every day waging a sincere and well planned war against the vile practice.
It is perhaps for that reason that the public's reaction to the raids by the police on massage parlors and a discotheque said the be fronts for brothels in the last few days has been to spew forth a barrage of questions.
On Tuesday night, plainclothes officers raided a massage parlor in downtown Jakarta which they believed to be a bordello. During the operation they arrested people, ranging from assistant managers to a 14-year-old masseuse and a customer who were found naked in a room together.
Earlier the same day, plainclothes officers had raided a discotheque in the same area, which they believed was also a brothel. They arrested a number of people which they charged with pandering and prostitution.
The law enforcers might have had a solid investigative basis for the raids, but judging from similar sporadic operations in the past, we tend to believe that the raids were not a serious part of a consistent anti-vice campaign.
This view seems to be validated by the fact a city councilor has raised the question of why only those two places were raided, while there are so many similar "entertainment" businesses in town?
It is public knowledge that the so-called new massage houses here -- some of which advertise with extra neon signs in English "For Ladies and Gents" -- are nothing but covert brothels. In their effort to cover up their real business, many of the newer parlors call their service "traditional massage" to compete with the existing ones, which offer "massage and steam-baths", but do not have the appropriate facilities.
Law enforcers have occasionally targeted hotels suspected of allowing prostitutes to use their rooms in the past. However, the off-again-and-on-again operations, mostly sneered at by the public, had been halted for a long time before the recent raids.
Now the law-enforcers have introduced another reason for snuffing out the vice: to prevent the growth of organized crime which could spread terror here.
Even with what looks like a more concerted effort than ever on the part of the police, it seems unlikely that the fronts for prostitution will be eliminated quickly or easily. Especially not with the city administration continuing to issue licenses for the so-called massage business, while trumpeting the need to eradicate brothels.
Words and deeds must go hand in hand. Thus far city policy has been inconsistently principled and consistently ineffective.