Indramayu exports its best commodity: 'Mangoes'

Indramayu exports its best commodity: 'Mangoes'

Moch. N. Kurniawan and Novan Iman Santosa, The Jakarta Post,
Indramayu, West Java

Indramayu regency is famous for its delicious mangga (mangoes),
but the word is also a euphemism for prostitute, which the
regency is also well-known for.

Ask any sex worker in Jakarta's red light district of Mangga
Besar or Batam island in Riau where they come from, and the
likely response will be Indramayu, the northern part of Central
Java.

"Mangga from Indramayu tastes good, mas (elder brother)," a
local social observer, Dibyo, told The Jakarta Post recently,
referring to its sex workers.

"Girls from neighboring regencies like to say they come from
Indramayu so they can charge more."

And the Indramayu mango has gone international.

Over the past three years, teenage girls from Indramayu --
along with girls from other areas, such as Bandung, Karawang and
Bali -- have become sex workers in Japan under the pretext of
traditional dancers.

Japan is a new destination for them. Previously, the girls
mostly went on to Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and the
Middle East.

An informal leader in Gabus Wetan district, who requested
anonymity, said the "traditional dance mission" had also reached
Australia.

He said Jakarta-based recruitment agencies lure girls from the
western Indramayu districts of Bongas, Gabus Wetan, Anjatan and
Karangsinom.

The districts, where there are no paved roads and robbers roam
at night, are known as the home of sex workers.

One estimate said that more than 1,000 girls had been sent to
Japan from Indramayu over the last three years.

Firdaus from PT Jaya Musikindo, a company that is licensed to
send girls to Japan to work as dancers, said illegal companies
sent sex workers.

"That is the practice of illegal firms, but not by us," he
said, while refusing to elaborate.

Several girls just returning from Japan said that they had
worked as dancers in restaurants or night clubs in Japan's
province of Miyagi.

Matsu, 20, said she received one-month training in Balinese,
Javanese and Jaipongan (popular West Javanese dance) dancing
before leaving for Japan.

"I went there six months ago with 11 girls. I started my work
at 6 p.m. and finished at midnight. I danced, served meals and
accompanied our Japanese guests.

"But if we slept with anyone there for money, the restaurant
owner would cut our salaries and send us home," said Matsu, with
a toss of her highlighted hair.

Matsu, who is from the Bongas district, said she stayed with
other dancers in a hall provided free of charge by the Japanese
owner and that she had brought home about Rp 30 million
(US$3,300) for her family and would go back in September.

"I want to help my father, who is only a farmer," she said at
her home, which has new brick walls and ceramic floor tiles.

Asked whether she was given a valid work visa, Matsu said she
had been on a tourist visa, implying that she was an illegal
worker.

Meanwhile, Elli, 19, a dancer from Gabus Wetan district, said
she had heard that there were dancers from Indramayu who worked
as prostitutes in Japan.

"But that's difficult to say. I only worked there as a dancer
and sat with visitors for a drink," she said in a somewhat naive
tone.

She said with only three months training prior to her
departure, she learned how to dance a little of the Balinese and
Javanese dances. She said she earned Rp 50 million in Japan from
her six months salary, excluding tips.

The Japanese Embassy's first secretary on information and
cultural affairs, Shigeya Aoyama, told the Post in Jakarta that
the embassy would launch an investigation into the alleged misuse
of visas related to the reported sex trade.

"It is impossible for us to grant cultural visas while they
are working there," he said.

Aoyama also denied rumors that the embassy had sent two of its
staff members to Indramayu to investigate the reports on the sex
trade.

Elli said she hoped to go back to Japan to earn more money to
build her own house.

Matsu and Elli may have not been sex workers, but they
realized that their jobs came close to the practice.

Dibyo said that the traditional dance mission was the latest
ploy to cover up sex workers' activities.

"I know that some girls worked illegally in other countries as
sex workers. But this dance mission is a new one," he said.

Teguh Budiono, a social activist at the DKT Indonesia research
institute, said at a seminar in Jakarta last week that Indramayu
girls had various reasons to become prostitutes.

"The main reasons are poverty, a high divorce rate, early
marriage, a low level of education and a permissive culture," he
said.

He said that although 67 percent of the Indramayu paddy fields
had a good irrigation system, allowing for three harvests a year,
poverty in Indramayu could not be reduced because many farmers
were not owners of the fields.

Regarding the high divorce rate, he said, it meant that women
in Indramayu were skilled at charming men.

"Women are proud to say they have married several times," he
said.

A quarter of the 20,600 marriages performed in Indramayu in
2000 ended up in divorce, putting the regency at the top of the
list for divorces in West Java.

The people of Indramayu believe that a daughter is a gift
while a son is a disaster, as a daughter can work in big cities
and bring fortune to a family, but a son will only become a
farmer.

The Indramayu administration has tried correcting the problem
by promoting good morality and establishing new schools to
increase the number of job opportunities, but the sex trade
remains rampant.

The image that Indramayu is the major supplier of mangoes may
not easily be forgotten.