Kramat Tunggak red-light district to remain

Kramat Tunggak red-light district to remain

JAKARTA (JP): After months of debate over its location, the
controversial red-light district in Kramat Tunggak, North
Jakarta, is to stay put.

The municipality has decided not to move the district's sex
workers because of objections from residents in the proposed
relocation sites.

A welfare affairs officer, Soenarjudardji, said yesterday that
the municipality had decided to focus on rehabilitation to solve
the problems in Kramat Tunggak.

"We are in a dilemma," he said. "We want to relocate them
because they are operating too close to residential complexes and
disturbing locals, but residents in the new locations refused to
accept them.

"So we have decided to maintain the location and enforce a
policy of full rehabilitation."

Plans to move the red-light district, which was established in
the 1970s, have been frequently touted by city officials since
the 1980s.

The administration once planned to ship the prostitutes to the
Thousand Islands in North Jakarta or to Rawamalang in Cilincing,
North Jakarta.

Soenarjudardji said last month that the municipality wanted to
develop the 11-hectare Kramat Tunggak site, currently comprising
cheap rented rooms and food stalls, into an industrial estate.

Yesterday, he said the rehabilitation plan stipulated that
prostitutes would only be allowed to work during specific hours
and the areas where prostitution was permitted would not be
allowed to swell.

He said he was unable to provide further details about the
rehabilitation objectives because the plan was still being
formulated.

"We do not want them to become prostitutes again, but it
cannot be achieved in a short time," he said.

Sociologist Sartono Djatiman from the University of Indonesia
said that the municipality faced a dilemma with prostitution.

"If the municipality doesn't end prostitution here it creates
problems for the residents, but if the prostitutes can't operate
here then they will be roaming the streets and creating new
problems."

Sartono said that poverty was the main cause of prostitution.

"As long as economic problems cannot be handled, prostitution
will always exist."

He said that prostitutes came mainly from poor villages and
they were usually uneducated and jobless.

"So if the government wants to stop prostitution it should
first overcome poverty in the villages."

Sartono said it was not enough to provide training and teach
the sex workers new skills. It was also necessary to have jobs
for the people and markets for their products.

"I understand that it is complicated, so that's why it should
be done in a comprehensive manner involving other parties," he
said. (ind)