Prostitution should be legalized: NGO
JAKARTA (JP): Prostitution should be legalized to give sex workers the same status as other employees in the country, an activist said on Thursday.
Adi Sasongko, the head of Kusuma Buana non-governmental organization, said if prostitution was legalized, sex workers could be treated like other Indonesian citizens. They would have to pay taxes and would have their rights protected by the government.
Speaking at a seminar at the University of Indonesia on discrimination against sex workers, Adi, who has counseled and sponsored educational courses for prostitutes since 1993, said the majority of the prostitutes he had worked with faced discrimination and horrible experiences in their lives.
"Even if they're sex workers, they also have rights like any other Indonesian."
"It was always a matter of survival for these women (to choose such a profession). It was not their choice to become prostitutes, " he said.
According to existing laws, prostitution is illegal. Some provincial authorities have established so-called "rehabilitation centers" in which prostitutes are given "official" approval to work.
The seminar, organized by the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation and the School of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Indonesia, featured Edi Widodo from the City Social Agency, Relabakti Karo Karo from the Ministry of Social Services, Topo Susanto from the university's School of Law and Nur Azizah from the Bandungwangi sex workers organization.
According to Adi, most sex workers entered the profession due to economic problems and after experiencing traumatic events in their lives, including being raped by a family member or being married at an early age.
"In the case of early marriages, the women were usually abandoned with children by their husbands," Adi said. "Where should they go to earn a living?"
Another speaker at the seminar, Nur, an ex-prostitute, told the audience of the problems faced by sex workers in the Kramat Tunggak red-light district in North Jakarta.
According to her, the institutions and agencies which should provide aid for sex workers did nothing to help prostitutes.
"Officers from the City Social Agency never listen to our problems," she said.
"I, for example, once tried working in someone's house as a maid but was kicked out when my employer discovered I was a former prostitute. When I told the officials about my experience, they did nothing to help me," Nur said.
She said she was not alone in receiving such poor treatment from the community.
Some former prostitutes attempted to open beauty salons or become street vendors. However, she said, when the community found out they were former sex workers, people refused to patronize them.
"Even in health matters, the nurses regularly take blood from us just like they were taking blood from goats," Nur said.
"They never explain to us why the blood has to be taken or why they have to examine us," she said.
She also said doctors treated sex workers unfairly.
"Doctors around Kramat Tunggak always charge us three times more than their other patients," she said.
Police officers are no better, Nur said.
"We have to pay so much money for what the police call a protection fee," she said.
For these reasons, Adi hopes the government will be willing to legalize the status of sex workers.
"Many parties, including the police, the military, pimps, and so on, abuse prostitutes physically and emotionally due to their illegal status under existing laws," Adi said. (ylt)