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.