SEX work might be illegal in Indonesia, but high class establishments still offer an array of bizarre experiences. Brothel areas are one of the main battlegrounds for HIV prevention, and outreach workers are trying to stem the growth of the disease, which over the past decade has risen by 25 percent. Indonesia is one of relatively few countries where infection has rapidly increased.
Viewing pornography can get you a four-year prison sentence. She has also said those caught visiting sex workers will have their faces published on social media.
That was until 6, police raided the 1. I arrived to the area felt a little bit at home β the new Kalijodo had become something you might see in a new Australian outer-suburb. People were playing guitar and chess β people looked happy and they told me so. When I asked where the prostitutes had gone, one of the operators reluctantly pointed to an unlit space across the river under a roaring highway overpass. The invitation came from a small man, silhouetted in the dark new brothel slum, a makeshift collection of little rooms made of mismatched scrap wood and tin with the traffic zooming around us.
I could see inside through the gaps and big cracks in these little constructions β rooms with grotty looking beds and ceiling fans clicking above them. But no more than a dozen bordello rooms. It left me wondering where the other 1, prostitutes had gone, and after much cajoling β I was told in a whisper: A few Kalijodo venues had moved to a district near the old Dutch town and reopened under new names.
I matched a venue name to the one I had been told about at the slum and headed inside. The place was, um β¦. Oriental Twin Peaks style lit entirely by dim-red globes. Towards the back dozens of girls wore high heel shoes in glass a fish tank room, frozen in boredom as they watched TV.
