A 'karaoke girl' shouts protests against the city government's move to close down the Dolly prostitution complex in Indonesia in June. Pic: AP. Critics said the scheme was ill-conceived and bound to fail, while conservative Muslims said it was a moral imperative according to the teachings of Islam. Three months later, we ask the all-important questions: Was the shutdown a success? And what happened to all the sex workers? As it turns out, Ibu Risma was wrong. What we can say for sure, however, is that the overwhelming majority of ex-Dolly sex workers are now at large.
But did anybody listen? The shutdown went ahead regardless. Surabaya itself is now significantly worse off since the eviction: street prostitution has soared, and new pop-up brothels are beginning to appear in massage parlours and apartment buildings throughout the city, far away from the lockdown at Dolly. The graveyard, which is also known by [its Javanese name], Cemoro Sewu, has long been associated with prostitution. Transactions are normally carried out around [read: on top of] the tombstones or graves, which are mostly made out of ceramic.
They [the sex workers] operate from nightfall until dawn. Tempo: But is this an effective and sustainable use of police time: a daily cat-and-mouse chase between officers and sex workers, across an ever-changing playing field of target names and locations β both indoors and outdoors!
Based on figures released by Widyanto, we are told that a single raid on the Kalimas River Bridge led to the arrests of 13 sex workers, while an additional three sex workers were apprehended at a secret brothel in a nearby apartment. Widyanto was admittedly surprised to find so many prostitutes working the dark underpass beneath the bridge. Surabaya is still rife with prostitution, and the authorities have even less chance of dismantling the industry now that its workforce has been dispersed all over the city.
I challenge Risma to name one country that has succeeded in this endeavour. Focussing purely on the supply-side of the industry is hypocritical, misogynistic and plainly disingenuous. The situation is therefore simple: give up the fight against sex work and start saving lives instead. This does not amount to an endorsement of prostitution, nor does it imply that prostitution is an ultimately desirable feature of society, it is simply a commitment to the health and well-being of citizens, and an acknowledgement that individual persons ought to have autonomy over their own bodies.
