Laila's nightmare over, all she wants is peace

Emmy Fitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Laila Nazmi had no idea that her efforts to escape poverty would one day lead her into forced prostitution. Last week she made headlines after the police, based on her account, raided the bar where she worked.

Upon taking the report from Laila, who escaped from Cempaka bar in the Kalijodo red-light district in North Jakarta, police raided the bar, freed 16 other young women who were also forced into the practice, and charged three people as suspects.

Pale and thin, Laila said on Saturday that all she wanted when she decided to head for Jakarta early in July was to find a job and send money back to her family in the village of Leduk Kulon, Cileduk district in Cirebon, West Java.

She refused to divulge anything about her family, saying that "it's not their fault, they don't know anything about this. I am so ashamed".

Laila, a high school graduate majoring in economics and administration (SMEA), came to Jakarta after a successful friend told her to come to the city and promised her a job.

"I couldn't find her address and I've lost her note now," the 22-year-old Laila said, adding that she began hanging around the Senen bus terminal as she had nowhere to go.

Heri, a man she met at the busy terminal, offered her a job as a housemaid and took her to a recruitment agency, Yayasan Setia Kawan, on Jl. Mangga Besar in West Jakarta.

"What else could I do as I didn't have any money at all at the time," she said.

She was picked up a day later by another man and taken to Cempaka bar after the establishment's owner paid Rp 350,000 to the man.

For almost two months, she had to serve about four or five guests a night. They gave her an average of between Rp 10,000 and Rp 20,000. She received no salary.

All she wishes now is to recover from her illness and then return to her village to the life she once knew.

She reportedly has a sexually transmitted disease (STD), but the police sent her to Budi Asih Hospital in East Jakarta on Saturday to be treated for high blood pressure.

The other 16 mostly underaged women have all returned to their hometowns.

All have claimed they were cheated by men that they had met at bus terminals and who offered them jobs.

Chief of Penjaringan Police Adj. Comr. Krishna Murti said there were still many other victims of women trafficking, but he said it was hard for the police alone to combat the crime.

"We should work with other related agencies as this is a real complicated social problem."

He told The Jakarta Post the police could not simply raid nightclubs as he worried that some voluntary prostitutes would go out on the streets.