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)