Mien to go to Saudi over 'prostitutes'

JAKARTA (JP): Many Indonesian teenagers have been sent to work in Saudi Arabia as prostitutes, State Minister of Women's Affairs Mien Sugandhi said yesterday.

"Their number is not in the tens, but has already reached the hundreds," Mien was quoted as saying by Antara.

The minister reported to President Soeharto at the latter's Jl. Cendana residence yesterday to discuss her plan to travel to Saudi Arabia to investigate reports that young Indonesian women were working as prostitutes.

Most of these women were below 20 years of age, and came from poor villages, she said.

They were usually first lured into coming to Jakarta, to work in red light districts, before being sent to Saudi Arabia.

Most of them reached Saudi Arabia by joining the hordes of other women who were dispatched by government-supervised manpower exporting agencies to work in the Middle-East kingdom, she added.

Mien said that on the trip to Saudi Arabia, she would be accompanied by members of the House of Representatives and staff from the foreign affairs and manpower ministries.

The minister also plans to visit Malaysia to check on the fate of Indonesian women workers there.

She said many Indonesian women who work as domestic servants there have been prevented from saying their Moslem prayers and were forced to cook pork by their Malaysian employers.

Some were also denied their wages, she said.

"No wonder many of them simply quit," she said.

Mien said there were currently around 185,000 Indonesian women working in Malaysia.

Saudi Arabia and Malaysia are the top foreign destinations for Indonesian workers seeking higher wages. (emb)