Tomang flyover streetwalkers in serious financial dilemma
Tomang flyover streetwalkers in serious financial dilemma
By Yogita Tahil Ramani
JAKARTA (JP): For years, the Tomang flyover in West Jakarta
was a lonely place at night.
Only one or two homeless people dared to spend the night in
the shadow of the giant concrete piles of the toll road.
Occasionally a group of street children could be seen laughing
and chatting beside Tomang junction beneath the flyover, killing
time before retiring to sleep on sheets of dirty cardboard.
However, these quiet, sad evening scenes changed dramatically
late last year with the arrival of dozens of male and female
prostitutes.
The country's ailing economy and strong public demand to rid
towns and cities of prostitution have lured the men and women to
the safe haven of Tomang flyover to practice their trade.
Here they can work undisturbed because it is apparently a less
attractive location for the local Tibum (law and order agency)
officers to carry out routine raids designed to curb
prostitution.
Holding mineral water bottles which they use to wash
themselves out after sex, the Tomang prostitutes wait patiently
for clients in the dim light under the flyover.
When interviewed by The Jakarta Post at the site last week,
they claimed their waiting hours had become even longer than
usual since the crisis broke.
They have reacted by cutting their old service fee of Rp
15,000 in half, but still clients -- mostly truck drivers, street
vendors and construction workers -- have remained scarce.
"Since the crisis started things have become even more
terrible for us," a mother of a 10-year-old boy said.
"I might get one customer in three or four days ... and they
never pay more than Rp 7,500," the 37-year-old woman added.
Tami, not her real name, said some people had urged her to
change her profession and become a beggar, but claimed it was
hard for her to do so.
"A newspaper man told me that a beggar can earn at least that
much (Rp 7,500) in a day ... but I don't know if I can. It's so
humiliating," Tami said.
"Someone even said that I should send my boy to sing on the
streets, but then we might not even be able to afford to buy an
Rp 2,000 meal after a full day under the hot sun," she said.
Prostitution is different, she added.
"I don't see it as something shameful. I just perform ... what
is there to opening your legs? Nobody sees us," Tami confided.
Her colleague, "Dewi," 40, said from her hiding place behind
the trees, where she was waiting for a client, that she supported
Tami's opinion, and argued that many housewives did the same
thing, albeit in a slightly different way.
"For instance, the wives of my street vendor friends always
sleep around with other men when their husbands are out.
"They are hypocrites. We are not and we never will be. We
enjoy this thoroughly," Dewi said.
Like many other women of their kind, the Tomang girls are
hardly willing to listen to the wise words of religious leaders,
let alone a minister.
When State Minister of Women's Affairs Tutty Alawiyah recently
advised sex workers to seek alternative work, a light brown-eyed
Tomang prostitute retorted: "Is she (the minister) a woman? If
she is, then she is a rich lady. Or maybe her husband has only
one wife and even if he has two, he must have a lot of money."
According to this second wife of a taxi driver, she chose the
profession after her husband could no longer afford to feed his
two families when food prices began to rise drastically at the
end of last year.
"I went into prostitution with his blessing and his
permission," said the mother of two children from Purwokerto in
Central Java.
Why prostitution?
"Because it's the fastest way of making good money... it's not
me I am scared about, it's my daughters."
The cross-dressing transvestite prostitutes at Tomang have
also suffer serious financial problems over the past few months.
Like many, they blame the crisis.
"One week, I get one customer. Another week, I don't.
Sometimes the customer hands me only Rp 5,000 and walks off,"
said 43-year-old "Parni," born as "Parno", clutching his plastic
pink makeup pouch.
"It's tiring waiting for a man to show up these days. I can
wait until after 11 p.m., but then there is the fear of police
raids. I went to jail once and it was so boring," Parni said.
Instead of waiting until midnight and not getting a customer,
Parni often goes to sleep in a garden 100 meters from the
flyover.
"I have to eat everyday, so during daylight hours I help a few
female friends of mine sell packed meals on the street."
At the end of the day I get my coffee and a meal. Sometimes
they give me Rp 2,000 ... which I use to purchase a bottle of
Sprite or cigarettes," the bone-thin transvestite from Cirebon,
West Java, said.
Parni confided that he left his hometown a year ago after his
parents tried to force him to marry a woman.
Like many of the Tomang prostitutes, Parni claims he always
asks his clients to use a condom.
The venue can be decided by the client or couples can rent the
room run by a woman in the nearby park for Rp 1,000 per short
time.
The "room", which measures 1.5 meters by two meters, is made
of transparent cloth nailed to trees and the flyover support
piles. There is also a rusted tap nearby where couples can openly
wash themselves after sex.
Her staff often double the price if strangers want to rent out
the room.
Despite their seemingly endless nightmare, the Tomang
prostitutes can still laugh and share funny stories together.
"Sometimes I shock my customers by whispering in their ears
that I am a transvestite. It's funny seeing them do a sprint and
run," said Parni, bursting in laughter.