SINGAPORE: Indonesian police announced over the weekend that they had arrested two women leaders of a prostitution ring in East Java. Police added that the women had forced 13 women between 18- and 23-years-old to work as sex workers in the country. Comr. Aziz Adriansyah, chief of the East Java Police's vice unit, identified the two women arrested as Naning, 50, who allegedly ran a call-girl service in Pasuruan, East Java; and Nuri, 40, who allegedly found customers for Naning, The Jakarta Globe reported. Maria Nusingrin, a women's rights activist and proponent of police efforts to crackdown on those responsible for forcing women to work as sex workers, told Bikyamasr.com that “this is something that we must force to end at all costs because of what it does to our country and the girls and women involved.” Both women, the newspaper reported, were charged under the 2007 Law on Trafficking, “which carries a penalty of between three and 15 years in prison and a fine of up to Rp 600 million ($66,000).” Aziz said most of the victims originated from the West Java towns of Bandung, Ciamis and Pangandaran, while the rest came from Malang and Surabaya in East Java. “They have been forced to work as prostitutes for more than three months,” he said. Each woman, the officer added, was priced at Rp 500,000 per customer, but most of the money went to Naning and Nuri. “In a day, each girl usually served two customers, so you can imagine how much the pimp was receiving, maybe hundreds of million of rupiah each month.” Aziz said that although based in Pasuruan, Naning often ordered the women to serve clients in Surabaya and Malang. Nusingrin added that women's issues in Indonesia are “finally getting attention.” She pointed that the government's efforts to end sex work and trafficking of women in the country “is starting to make an impact and we should be praising the police efforts to enforce the laws and their arrests in recent months against those illegal activities.” BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/N2tga Tags: Indonesia, Java, Police, Prostitution, Sex Workers Section: East Asia, Health, Human Rights, Latest News, Women
