Women entertainers 'at risk of being exploited'

Women entertainers 'at risk of being exploited'

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Women dancers are highly vulnerable to trafficking and becoming
ensnared in the flesh trade under the pretense of being brought
abroad to participate in cultural events, a tourism official
says.

Being uninformed and naive, and driven by economic need, many
women and girls have fallen victim to unscrupulous promoters, who
recruit them from dance groups for so-called "cultural dance
events" in foreign countries, the deputy minister of culture and
tourism for tourism products and business development, Myra P.
Gunawan, said.

"The events, however, turn out to be just covers for human
trafficking and exploitation," she told a workshop involving
dance groups and event promoters here on Tuesday,

Representatives from the Office of the State Minister for
Women's Empowerment and non-governmental organizations, including
the Legal Aid Foundation -- Indonesian Justice for Women's
Association (LBH-APIK) and the Indonesian Women's Journal
Foundation (YJP), also presented papers during the workshop.

The forum agreed that a lack of ethics on the part of a number
of dance promoters had contributed to the women trafficking
problem.

Association of Indonesian Cultural Event Organizers (ASPINDO)
chairman Sjahilun Arifin referred to even more serious abuses in
which foreign promoters recruited women directly from dance
groups, not for their dancing skills, but rather for their
physical attractiveness.

He said that ASPINDO could do nothing about this as the local
organizers had normally satisfied all the administrative
requirements and procedures set by the cross-sectoral monitoring
commission, which comes under the coordination of the Ministry of
Culture and Tourism, for recruiting and sending dancers abroad.

The association also had no powers to impose sanctions on any
of its members involved in such abuses, though Sjahilun said that
the association had issued a code of ethics to guide its members.

"We, therefore, call for greater powers that would allow us to
enforce the code of ethics," said Sjahilun.

Indri Ovtaviani from the LBH-APIK suggested that the
government set up a hotline in every local office of the Ministry
of Culture and Tourism to help those who fell victim to the
traffickers.

"Hotlines which anybody could use to seek help or report
indications of cultural and tourism activities being used for
women trafficking purposes would definitely be of great use,"
said Indri.

The NGOs also urged the government to push for the accelerated
enactment into law of the women trafficking bill, which has been
pending in the House of Representatives for about a year now.

In 2003, the police recorded 21 cases of women trafficking,
six of which are currently being investigated. There is no
specific data available, however, on how many of these cases were
related to cultural events.