With Indonesia lurching uncertainly towards national legislative elections this week, the shabby beer bars and brothels of Rawa Malang may seem like an unlikely spot for a bit of civic engagement.
Sitting in a dust-blasted corner of town near Jakarta’s port, the area is a warren of dens ringed by shipping containers, a mountain of rubbish and empty lots.
But with concerns mounting in the world’s third-largest democracy over shambolic polling preparations and voter apathy, sex workers are a novel tool in efforts to get citizens to vote, and vote correctly.
PHOTO: AFP
Trained by election officials, around 50 sex workers have been armed with stickers and told to reach colleagues and customers alike, local elections commission education head Marlina Ismail said.
“It’s the same as with housewives, for example. It’s more effective to reach them than the men because they automatically convey the message to their families,” Ismail said. “If we reach sex workers with a lot of customers we hope they can tell their customers about the election, especially how to vote.”
The efforts are all part of the challenge of pulling off a massive election on Thursday that will see around 170 million voters choosing from thousands of candidates from over 38 parties for local and national parliaments.
However, a recent survey found as many as 35 percent to 40 percent of voters could opt not to vote or cast invalid ballots.
While this number is still lower than many developed democracies like the US, any room for dispute could be a trigger for unrest.
As for the marginalized, Rawa Malang fits the bill. Truck drivers and workers from the nearby port make up much of the customer base, although the odd wealthy government official can turn up.
Only a handful of brothel areas like this have been reached, but at Rawa Malang at least the message has caught on.
“Everyone working here plans to vote. We have to do it,” said Ani, a 28-year-old who moved here from the Javanese countryside a year ago.
“I’ve spoken with customers about this, I’m not sure how many ... Mostly, the customers already know how to vote,” she said.
Her colleague Ati, 25, however, conceded not all customers were so attentive to her political entreaties.
“If there are any drunks, you can’t get them to communicate,” she said.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS