'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)