Medan teenagers trapped to work in Riau towns as prostitutes
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan
Yu, as friends call her, is 15, nearing 16. However, unlike her teenage peers at Kampung Baru, Medan, North Sumatra, she now has a new label: ex-sex worker.
It began one afternoon in September. After arriving home from school, her neighbor at Kampung Baru lured her to work at a company in Tanjung Balai Karimun in Riau province.
Attracted by a promised monthly salary of Rp 5 million (US$475), she agreed and left for Tanjung Balai Karimun that same day.
Upon arrival there, the neighbor delivered her to a man named Martin.
"From that moment, my fate turned ugly. The big pay deal was just a lie. I was forced into prostitution," she told The Jakarta Post last Saturday.
That began a classic story of a teenage prostitute in Indonesia, entering the lucrative business of prostitution by force, not by her own conscious intention.
Yu, nevertheless, considered herself lucky as she was eventually rescued by Ediyawarman, chairman of North Sumatra Children Care Group.
Ediyawarman, 49, also a volunteer for the Indonesian Child Protection Association (PPAI), said he discovered Yu's case after getting a report from another victim who had fled the district.
After ascertaining Yu's presence, Ediyawarman went to Tanjung Balai Karimun with her parents to take Yu back to Medan from Martin. Yu arrived at her home in Tanjung Baru late last month.
In the same week, Ediyawarman's group rescued three other teenagers, also forced into prostitution, from Tanjung Balai Karimun and Dumai, also in Riau.
Not all forced child prostitution victims helped by Ediyawarman have returned home for free.
Some of them, particularly those in Dumai, could leave only after paying "compensation" ranging from Rp 200,000 (USS$19) to Rp 600,000 per person.
The parents of one victim called Ip, told the Post last week that they had to pay Rp 200,000 for their daughter's release from a pimp in Dumai.
The parents said that Ip disappeared in the beginning of February 2000. They searched for her in every corner of the city but to no avail.
About two weeks later, nevertheless, the parents received a letter from Ip, telling them that she along with her two other female friends, Wa and An, were confined in one house at the Dumai "garbage disposal" prostitution site.
In response to the letter, the parents together with relatives of the other two girls went to Dumai with Ediyawarman on Feb. 24, 2000 to save them.
After tough bargaining, Ip's parents managed to free her after paying her pimp Rp 200,000, but Wa's relatives had to pay Rp 525,000 to get her out. Worse, however, is that An's parents did not have enough money to bail her out.
An is still in Dumai.
According to Ediyawarman, An's parents, and many other parents, suffer a great deal of stress after failing to get their abused children out of the flesh business.
The father of another victim Si, 18, for example, stayed in the Wisma Ria Bagan Besar complex, Bukit Kapur district, Dumai, for a year until his death due to his failure to take her home.
The problem began with Si's sealed statement in 1999 declaring her agreement to work as a waitress. Therefore, if she wishes to quit the job she is required to reimburse her employer for all costs.
According to PPAI's investigation, Dumai has 95 premises used for prostitution purposes, of which 65 are labeled as entertainment centers while the rest disguise themselves as business and housing units.
Each of the 65 entertainment premises employs around 20 commercial sex workers, with 15 rooms for visitors.
Ediyawarman said his group had tried hard to find and get all forced prostitutes back to their homes, nevertheless, the efforts many times could not be pursued smoothly.
During the past two years, the Children Care Group has brought a total of 14 victims of forced teenage prostitution back to Medan from red-light districts in Dumai and Tanjung Balai Karimun.
"Five more couples have reported the loss of their children. We haven't been informed of their whereabouts so far," added Ediyawarman.
Provincial police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Amrin Karim, when asked to confirm the presence of under-age child trafficking for prostitution in Medan-Dumai-Batam areas, said there was no such child trading.
What happens, according to Amrin Karim, is that some children get into the sex business after losing decent jobs. "They prostitute themselves willingly instead of being forced, and none of them has any complaint," he told the Post.
According to the country's Criminal Code, anybody providing sex service facilities is liable to 16 months imprisonment or a maximum fine of only Rp 15,000, and anybody employing under-age children in such facilities is subject to a maximum prison term of six years.
Ade Akhmad Ilyasak, PPAI's communications manager, described the penalties imposed on culprits of this business and its networks as no longer compatible with the sense of justice developing in society.
"Six years' imprisonment is too lenient in comparison with the victims' life-long physical and psychological sufferings, affecting also their families and social environments," Ade added.