'Happy Ramadhan, now get out of town'

Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Kartini, a vegetable vendor, was standing on sidewalk after shopping for vegetables at the Cengkareng traditional market in West Jakarta, when several Public Order Officers came and forced her into their truck.

She was arrested because she failed to produce her ID card, which she said was stolen along with her wallet, on the first day of Ramadhan, Nov. 6.

Kartini, 30, showed the officers a letter from the police explaining that she had lost the ID card. Yet, the Public Order Officers refused to let her go, believing that she was a prostitute.

The woman, a single mother of one, was just one of 452 people sent to the city administration's social rehabilitation center in Kedoya, West Jakarta, as a result of the raids conducted by the officers since the beginning of Ramadhan.

On Thursday afternoon Nov. 14, Aris, a resident of Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta sat forlornly outside the institution's visiting room. He was trying in vain to get his relative, Kartini, released, after she was locked up in the center late on Wednesday evening.

To make things more complicated, he said, the center failed to inform any of Kartini's relatives. Aris was only able to find out about her abduction at around noon on Thursday from the center's cleaning lady, who was paid by Kartini to call Aris.

He rushed to Kedoya only to be told that he had to obtain letters from Kartini's neighborhood administration, the subdistrict and the regency administration regarding her residential status before the Social Affairs Agency could approve her release.

"She did nothing wrong, but the officers brought her here anyway. And now, I cannot take her home until the day after tomorrow (Saturday)," he told The Jakarta Post.

The Public Order Officers have intensified the raids against beggars, vagrants, prostitutes and other people labeled by the city government as those with community and social problems (PMKS).

While any positive aspects of the raids remain to be seen, there reportedly have been many people wrongfully arrested.

The head of the Kedoya center's character and moral development department, Aseli Husin, admitted frequent mistakes had been committed by the officers because they often just combed the city's streets or areas near known red-light districts.

He said that only 31 of the 64 women categorized as sex workers held since Nov. 6 had been positively identified as prostitutes. Those 31 were sent to a special institution, the Bina Karya Wanita Harapan Mulia in Cipayung, North Jakarta, earlier on Thursday. The rest, including Kartini, were still in Kedoya, pending clarification of their identity.

On Thursday, the center, which has a capacity to house around 300 people, sent home 110 people, mostly beggars, to their homes in West Java and Central Java.

Another 80 people, including the 31 sex workers, were sent to undergo rehabilitation at various institutions all over Jakarta after receiving guidance and short-courses such as silk-screening and doormat-production.

The acting head of the center, Djoko Haryanto, denied the statements from several beggars who claimed that they were released from Kedoya after paying a bribe.

He explained that the center deliberately imposed difficult procedures to release the people in a bid to teach a lesson to them and to make their families or those responsible for them to take care of them and to pay more attention to them.

"But don't get me wrong. People used to say that we'd take money. The fact is, though, people have to spend a lot of money to obtain all the required documents as well as to pay transportation fees before we release their relatives," he quickly added.

Djoko also said that many people came to claim themselves as the fathers or brothers of the commercial sex workers. "Many of them are actually lawyers or police officers," he said.