'Kramat Tunggak needs control, not relocation'

'Kramat Tunggak needs control, not relocation'

JAKARTA (JP): It would be better to tighten control over the
city's only "sanctioned" prostitution center in Kramat Tunggak,
North Jakarta, rather than relocate it, two activists said
yesterday.

Two HIV/AIDS awareness activists, legislator Nafsiah Mboi and
Adi Sasongko of the Kusuma Buana Foundation, warned that moving
the Kramat Tunggak complex would only spur the growth of illicit
prostitution.

Nafsiah said tighter control over the minimum age of both
prostitutes and their customers is necessary to control the
complex better.

"Sex workers should not be under 18," Nafsiah said, in the
talks which heard the results of a community-based HIV/AIDS
prevention project in the Cilincing district, North Jakarta.

Stopping school boys entering the complex would also help to
allay the fears of the community, she added.

The speakers were responding to municipality plans to move the
complex to the Seribu Islands. This was prompted by the demands
of residents around the 11.5-hectare complex, who for the past
few years have protested at having a prostitution complex in
their midst.

Residents have raised concerns over the socialization of their
children. Councilors said earlier the wishes of the thousands of
residents are more their concern than the those of the
prostitutes.

But they also echoed Governor Surjadi Soedirdja's call that "a
thorough concept" must ensure the new "rehabilitation center"
does not become a brothel.

Adi suggested there should also be rules on wearing condoms to
ensure safe sex. Earlier Deputy Governor Museno, in charge of
public welfare, had asked how this could be enforced.

Nafsiah said it would be more feasible to persuade the heads
of red-light districts to set their own rules on safe sex.

"But that is only possible when the sex workers are "solid","
she said.

Adi, whose foundation has recruited 150 "peer educators" among
Kramat Tunggak's prostitutes in a drive to raise safe sex
awareness, said men are apt to turn to new or less attractive sex
workers who do not ask them to wear condoms.

Both speakers also urged the authorities to involve the sex
workers in the plans to move them.

"They are our fellow citizens, so they should sit with
community representatives and decision makers to discuss this
plan," Nafsiah said.

She acknowledged that a process would be needed to enable
"talks between equals."

Charles Surjadi, a researcher at the private Atmajaya
University, said the plan to move Kramat Tunggak should draw on
past experience.

"In the 1970 and 1973 rules on centers for prostitutes, it was
said the intention was to eliminate illegal sites such as
Kalibaru and other areas," he said.

However virtually all the sites mentioned, many of them in
North Jakarta, sooner or later reverted back to red-light
districts, Charles said.

In his presentation on the Cilincing project he cited low-
class red-light districts in Kalibaru, Marunda and the Cilincing
sub-district. There are at least 4,000 women in the sex industry
in North Jakarta, he said. (anr)