Kramat Tunggak hookers to get three-day holiday
Kramat Tunggak hookers to get three-day holiday
JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta administration has ordered
prostitutes in the Kramat Tunggak red-light district in North
Jakarta to stop working between Aug. 17 to 19 during Indonesia's
independence celebrations, an official said.
Chief of the city's rehabilitation project for prostitutes,
M. Sihombing told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday there would be no
lascivious activity during these three days. Tug-of-war and
volley ball competitions are to be held instead.
"We will supervise the area tightly," said Sihombing who
prefers to call Kramat Tunggak a "women rehabilitation center"
rather than a red-light district.
Sihombing, however, did not mention any sanctions against
those who disobeyed the order.
"Most of them have become prostitutes because of their
economic condition. If they do not work for too long, how are
they going to feed their families?" Sihombing asked.
According to Sihombing, most of the prostitutes in Kramat
Tunggak have families to feed.
The city administration has ordered the place to close for
only two days, Aug. 16 and 17, in previous years. This is the
first time that it was ordered to close for three days, Sihombing
said.
Besides Independence Day, Sihombing said, the center also
closes during Idul Fitri, Christmas and during the first three
days of the fasting month Ramadhan.
The 11-hectare Kramat Tunggak district is home to about 1,850
prostitutes and is the only red-light district controlled by the
city administration. The complex was opened in 1972 to keep
prostitutes off the city's streets and group them in one site
where they could be controlled and taken care of. The city
administration has managed the area since 1989. They named it
Kramat Tunggak Women's Rehabilitation Center. The district
contains more than 250 buildings capable of housing about 2,500
persons, Sihombing said.
The City Council has supported the city administration's
three-day closure decree in order to honor Indonesia's
Independence Day.
The chairman of Commission E, which is in charge of social
welfare matters, Atje Muljadi, said that the prostitutes are
Indonesian citizens. "They should participate in the
celebrations," he said.
Meanwhile, the prostitutes, brothel operators and officials in
this largest prostitution complex in the city, said that none of
them had been informed of the forced holiday.
As usual
Other sources said they expected business to go on as usual
despite the order.
"This area is only closed during Lebaran," an official from
the City Agency for Social Affairs who refused to be named told
the Post on Tuesday.
Lebaran is the annual public holiday season when Moslems
celebrate the end of the Ramadhan fasting month, also known as
Idul Fitri.
Nazar, a civilian security guard at the complex, added
"Normally, we make copies of such announcements and stick them on
the walls around the complex days before the regulation is to be
carried out."
He said that he had received no explicit instruction from his
superiors about the three-day closure.
Yeti, 29, one of the more senior inhabitants of the complex,
commented, "There have been no holidays here to celebrate
Independence Day since this complex opened many years ago."
"The authorities must know that a community like ours does not
like to have too many holidays in a year because we need money to
live," said Lenah, 19, who was wearing a T-shirt bearing the
slogan Beware of AIDS.
According to her colleagues the complex is no longer an easy
place to earn money, due to the increasing number of prostitutes.
(bas/01)