Indonesia’s sex workers organise, fight stigma and shame

Medan, Indonesia – Marta Dewi, a housewife in Central Java province, accidentally became an advocate for Indonesian sex workers.

Dewi lives in Bandungan, a small mountain town known for attracting thousands of sex workers from all over Indonesia. Dewi lived side by side with the women trying to make a living and sympathized with their situation.

“I have never worked as a sex worker, but I care about my environment and in my environment there are so many sex workers,” Dewi told Al Jazeera. “Once I got to know them, I realized that they were doing this work out of necessity and should not be judged.”

In 2015, Dewi founded PERKAWIS, or the Association of Tourist Workers, a union to support sex workers in the region and educate them about health, financial issues and the law. The name was chosen because of the stigma associated with sex work and to appeal to religious groups in the region.

Dewi decided to set up PERKAWIS after a sex worker died of an overdose and was discovered in a guest house near Bandungan carrying only a fake ID.

“It was so hard for us because we couldn’t find their family,” Dewi recalls. “There were also a number of other cases where a sex worker died and we had no data on that. Now we collect data from the workers who come here so that we know who to contact if there is a problem.”

PERKAWIS is also working with the local health authority to provide sex workers with health checks and educate them about their reproductive health, as many of the women have not received basic sex education. In the past, the union has distributed free condoms and screened employees for HIV and other STIs.

While sex work is not illegal in Indonesia, those who work in the industry are often prosecuted under other laws, such as the country’s anti-pornography laws. In 2014, Semarang Regency, where Bandungan is located, passed legislation banning sex work, only to repeal it the following year and pass new legislation granting sex workers certain rights, including protection from prosecution.

Still, Firhandika Ade Santury, a Bandungan researcher who has spent years documenting the industry, said sex workers are still not fully protected by the government.

“Indonesian society usually sees sex work in black and white. They see them as ‘evil’ and don’t see them as workers in the classic sense of the word,” Santury told Al Jazeera. “I discovered that their job is a result of their situation, not their first choice of job, so why do we blame them and not the economic problems that caused their situation?”

According to Sanutry’s research, about 88 percent of sex workers in the region join the industry out of economic necessity.

“They face threats such as abuse, violence and health issues, and these are all issues that are not being addressed,” he said. “They need a union because sex workers need support. We must support their rights as workers.”

Another way Dewi’s union supports sex workers is by helping them plan for the future, something she says is important if they want to one day retire from sex work.

“We talk about how much money they need to do something else, like open their own business, and they’re working towards that as a goal. If they don’t have anyone to do that with them, they could get stuck in the industry for years.”

Leli, a coordinator of the Indonesian Organization for Social Change (OPSI), a civil society group that supports sex workers, said there is an urgent need for sex workers’ unions in Indonesia because their livelihoods are so precarious due to factors beyond their control.

Leli said the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly hard on sex workers, who do not receive benefits such as vacation pay, year-end bonuses or pensions.

The Islamic holy month of Ramadan can also be a struggle.

“It’s hard to find clients on a normal day, let alone during Ramadan,” Leli, a former sex worker, told Al Jazeera.

“There are more raids during Ramadan, but sex workers still have to provide for their families and with the Eid holiday they have to earn and save even more money to pay for everything, while at the same time there are fewer and fewer clients.”

Leli is originally from Langkat, a regency two hours drive from Medan. Like many other sex workers, Leli left her hometown to avoid the stigma of sex work. In Bandungan, sex workers mostly come from neighboring Cipara and Bandung, and sometimes even from Kalimantan, to look for work.

Activists say sex workers’ tendency to move away from family and friends only adds to the need for groups like PERKAWIS to provide support.

Dewi said PERKAWIS does not have a set number of members because sex worker turnover is high in the area, but it typically has about 100 sex workers in its database at any given time.

“I just do as much as I can, within the conditions I have to work with,” she said. “I just try to care about the people around me.”