An interesting discussion found at
www.batamforum.com The discussion board for Batam Island, Indonesia
Suspicion that Singapore's education system produces graduates with a total lack of judgement or common sense came to the fore yesterday, with the following article by a couple of totally naive nitwit hacks working for the SPH (Singapore Press Holdings) government controlled newsheet, The New Paper.
The REAL story is that a slimbag tout called Husaini (probably a Batak taxi drver) and an educated NGO parasite Ms Lola Wanger, have been enjoying the financial fruits of stupid do-gooders from Singapore and elsewhere who send money to "save" non exisitent child prostitutes in Batam.
The truth is, that the 3 shelters mentioned have no kids becuase there are none that need "saving" by these idiots.
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Anyway, it is great way to scam some NGO funds and sell newspapers.
Poor little Esther Au Yong was not smart enough to figure how the scam goes down - her tone is one of disappointment - that Batam is not crawling with exploited children.
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JUNE 21, 2004 MON
WOLF looking after chicks?
He tries to educate child prositiutes in Batam but...
He is married to brothel owner
His mistress is a prositute
He had contracted sexually-transmitted disease from prositutes in the past
By Esther Au Yong
ON one level, Mr Husaini Tarmizi is a social worker dedicated to helping Batam prostitutes.
But, on another, the outreach worker with the Indonesian non-governmental organisation, Yayasan Mitra Kesehatan dan Kemanusiaan (YMKK), looks a lot like a wolf guarding a hen-house.
The 29-year-old Indonesian has a complicated background: He is married to a brothel owner He also has a mistress on the side She is a prostitute as well.
And, if that's not difficult enough to deal with, this prostitute-mistress is the second wife of a local doctor.
HE GIVES THEM ADVICE
This is Mr Husaini's role, as he described to The New Paper on Sunday: 'I go out and talk to sex workers and brothel owners. I tell them to use condoms and to practise safe sex.
'I also educate prostitutes about their right to non-violent sex, and about HIV and AIDS.
'As for the child prostitutes, I try to tell them that they have a choice not to be in this industry. They can seek help at YMKK and other shelters, if they need to,' he added in Bahasa Indonesia.
But, in a frank conversation over dinner, Mr Husaini admitted that he had been to prostitutes before he got married eight years ago.
And he often had sex with them without protection.
As a result, he contracted a sexually-transmitted disease.
He said, however, that he always used a condom after that episode.
'Some of my 'girlfriends' didn't want me to, but I insisted,' he said.
He further claimed that he got on so well with some of them that they gave him free sex.
Many of his 'girlfriends', as well as his wife, were older women.
'Somehow, many of them found me attractive,' he said with a laugh.
'There's also a saying that prostitutes sleep with younger men so that they can keep young for their clients,' he added.
When he met The New Paper on Sunday to show us around the Batam sex scene, Mr Husaini was dressed respectably.
The tall, affable young man wore a blue long-sleeved T-shirt and tailored grey trousers. The bespectacled Indonesian, who is from Sumatra, also has fair skin. That makes him stand out among the mostly darker-skinned Batam inhabitants.
He said that after he got married he stopped visiting prostitutes.
His present mistress is an exception.
He usually visits her after work, around 5pm. They have sex, then he would leave for home before her husband returned.
The way he put it, it was mostly the girls who were smitten by him and rarely the other way around.
He also said he has never considered leaving his wife, even though he has a mistress.
'I still want to look after her,' said the father of a 3-year-old adopted daughter.
'I don't want her to be heartbroken. And we have a young child together.'
In his line of work, perhaps it's also unwise to burn bridges.
Indeed, Mr Husaini maintained some 'useful' contacts.
He claimed to know someone who could quickly and easily obtain local identity cards and driving licences.
Throughout our visit, it was clear he knew the Batam social scene well. He took us to various hang-outs frequented by sex workers, pimps, and their customers.
He certainly didn't come across as a clean-cut social worker.
Do the contradictions in his personal life affect his work with the sex workers?
'No, it doesn't really. But it's not an ideal situation. I try to tell my wife and mistress to stop. But it's hard, they are so deeply entrenched in this industry.
'I try my best by educating them. Passing on the knowledge I have gained from working with YMKK,' he explained.
Before becoming a social worker, he worked as a driver. He has no real qualifications to be a counsellor.
What about his wife's brothel?
Does he have any say in its running?
'Well, I can only make sure no-one there is forced to do a job they don't want to do. I make it a point to ensure there are no children or trafficked victims working for my wife,' he said.
However, he clarified that he's not involved with the management of the brothel, and would not let us speak with his wife.
BOSS SHOCKED TO LEARN OF MISTRESS
Ms Lola Wagner, YMKK's director, said she is aware of Mr Husaini's marriage to a brothel owner and is frustrated by it.
'Yes, I do acknowledge that his lifestyle seems contradictory to our mission. But Husaini has been a good and effective worker. He is not directly at fault for what his wife does,' she said.
'Also, he has good street knowledge about what is going on.
'This has helped us a lot in our outreach programmes. The prostitutes and their pimps listen to what he has to say.'
However, she expressed shock when told that he has a mistress.
Still, Ms Wagner clings on to hope: 'Hopefully, he will change. And also eventually get his wife and mistress, if he does indeed have one, to change their ways too.'
Sex shelter empty
WHEN The New Paper on Sunday visited Batam two Saturdays ago, we were hoping to meet rescued child prostitutes seeking help in the three available shelters on Batam.
But we discovered that they were empty, and that one had even closed down.
'It's not easy for the girls to 'escape' and come to these shelters,' YMKK's director, Ms Lola Wagner, explained.
'They are being held at the brothel's quarters when they are not working. They are scared to run away. They have to first be confident enough to come to us. Only then can we help them,' she said.
YMKK is a Batam-based organisation dedicated to improving the lives of women workers in Batam.
In particular, they are reaching out to sex workers and trafficked victims by educating them about contraception and sexually-transmitted diseases.
Currently, they have 10 staff. Their shelter closed down last year due to a lack of funding and trained manpower.
These shelters take in abuse victims, ranging from trafficked sex workers and ill-treated maids, to child prostitutes running away from captive brothels.
Once there, they are given counselling and rehabilitation.
They can also stay at this secure place for up to two weeks.
During this time, arrangements will be made for them to return home to their villages or hometowns.
The last victim who sought help approached Pusat Pelayanan Tenaga Kerja Perempuan (Shelter for Women Wokers), an organisation which runs a shelter, early this month.
Other shelters also seem under-utilised.
Aisyiah, a home-stay shelter programme linked to Dr Amein Rais' Muhammadiyah group, last attended to three trafficked sex workers last November.
The emptiness of these shelters tells a sad story of the low success rate of Batam's NGOs in helping sex workers leave their profession.
S'pore money funding struggling organisation
IN BATAM
A SOCIAL worker with questionable morals, and a complicated life.
Empty shelters that are not fully made use of.
Lack of manpower and funding.
All these point to an aid organisation that does not seem to have got its act together.
The organisation admits as much.
'Yes, I agree to a certain extent that the work we do is not very effective,' said Ms Lola Wagner, co-founder and director of the Yayasan Mitra Kesehatan dan Kemanusiaan (YMKK).
'We are trying our best with the limited resources that we have.'
SUPPORT FROM SINGAPORE
For the past year, the Batam-based organisation has been receiving funds and manpower support from the Singapore chapter of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem).
Both organisations declined to reveal the funds given to YMKK.
With an unproven track record, why is Unifem Singapore putting its money, and energy, in YMKK?
Ms Saleemah Ismail, the manager of Unifem Singapore's End Trafficking Of Women And Children For Sexual Exploitation project explained: 'Lola Wagner, YMKK's director, is very well known and respected in the community.
'She is a leader and in the forefront of outreach work to sex workers in Batam.'
Ms Wagner is an Indonesian.
Before setting up YMKK, she was a scholar majoring in women's studies.
COUNSEL AND RESCUE
'The organisation is also one of the pioneers in Batam to combat the lack of education on contraception and sexually-transmitted diseases,' said Ms Saleemah.
'They also try to counsel and rescue trafficked victims.
'YMKK is also active in its engagement with the Indonesian government,' she added.
Interestingly, they are also aware of Mr Husaini and his contradictory lifestyle.
'Unifem Singapore does not get involved in the recruitment or management of staff employed by our partners,' said Ms Saleemah.
'Our support for partner organisations is based on the effectiveness of the organisation as a whole.'
Ms Saleemah also explained that Unifem Singapore carries out its own checks and evaluation.
'During my visits to Batam, I make it a point to talk to some prostitutes myself,' she said.
'I also go and look at the situation there. This is to make sure what I hear from the local NGO is consistent,' she added.
Together, Unifem and YMKK have tried to raise awareness of exploitation, trafficking and social responsibility issues in Batam as well as in Singapore. They are particularly concerned about the exploitation of children in the sex industry.
Their next collaboration will be in July. They will be placing condoms in the rooms of at least one local hotel in the Indonesian island.
These condoms will carry thought-provoking messages, to get men to think twice about having sex with children.
Wanting to be more effective, the four-year-old YMKK has other plans.
HELP FROM GOVERNMENT
'We do acknowledge that the one-to-one (social worker approaching prostitute individually) counselling approach might not be very effective,' said Ms Wagner.
'This approach needs time and effort. Lots of it. That's why we are aiming at getting the government to change the situation.
'We want to put some pressure on the local and central government to deal with the issue of child trafficking more seriously,' she added.
'We also want to run more public awareness programmes. So, with these two approaches to complement our existing work, we hope to reach a more effective number of people.'
==end==
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Thank you for publishing this article. It is absolutely hilarious the New Paper actually published this article. It's incredible, the parties involved abosluletly operate with 100% blind faith that there is some huge child prostitution/women traffic problem in Batam. They refuse to accept even a small possibility that the Emperor (I mean NGO and her prince slimeball tout) has no clothes. It's actually shocking that this article was published by SPH given how total ridiculous the saving efforts look. Then again it does protray Batam and a dangerous cess pool that Singaporeans need to stay from.
I love this quote
"'It's not easy for the girls to 'escape' and come to these shelters,' YMKK's director, Ms Lola Wagner, explained.
'They are being held at the brothel's quarters when they are not working. They are scared to run away. They have to first be confident enough to come to us. Only then can we help them,' she said. "
Come on this is same organization that claims 40% of the 9,000 (or was it 90,000) sex workers in Batam were underaged. You mean they can't even get a couple of underage sex workers into a shelter with this huge pool of candidates?
I have an idea. Instead of putting condoms with messages to punters, why not put free chocolate bars in the hotel rooms with messages inside the wrappers to child prostitutes on how they can get help to escape the indentured servitude contracts. They could even use cartoons, like those found in Singapore public restrooms, to deliver the message.
The big problem is that all of the exaggerations, misinformation, and overstatements made is that it eventually destroys all credibility. It much like all the "reefer madness" propoganda in the states. Hell once people tried a joint and discovered that they didn't become delusional and jump out windows thinking they could fly, but rather it was enjoyable and relatively harmless. Governement anti drug educational campaigns were rendered useless to those they really want to target. But those adds do make right wing bible thumpers feel good about themselves.
Look, there are definately some brothels who means of procurring and then managing the "staff" are ethically questionable. Myself I don't go to these types of joints mainly for this reasons. It's a shame that these NGO's don't focus energy on tackling these issues. But then it would have to tackle issues such judicial and law enforcement corruption, real crime syndicates, and the culture of ****ed-up family values where parents manipulate their daughters' cultural obligation to provide family support by pressuring them into signing contracts that pay an upfront lump some and have horrific back end terms. Nah that's too damn hard and less profitable than screaming child sex slaves, evil exploitive diease riddled first world punters, and sticking free condoms in a hotel.
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People maybe suprised to know that the New Paper actually puiblishes half decent articles - Even it is one of SPH's dogs...
However, anyone who knows the sex industry in Batam will tell you that the cover up in this story and the others circulated by Smith are a load of rubbish...
I have never scene any child prostition in Batam.
I have only been with women of age that were more then willing to be with me for the rupiah in my pocket.
When will NGO's realise the more they hit at an industry that is at present very open and reasonably clean the more it will go underground and the worse it will becoime for those they think are saving.
Anyone of the girls I have been with whether KTV or freelance have a choice - I know a lot that even after their contracts have finished they renew them again of their own free will.
There are a lot of jobs in Batam - The factories are full of girls that made a choice not to KTV it (You can meet some freelancing it at the disco's thou
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I will have to give Esther Au Young some credit. She went to Batam clearly to write a story about child prostituion and cthe commendable job some NGO was doing to combat it. However, when she didn't find any child prostitutes she didn't start making up numbers and tall tales. She only reported verifiable facts and attributable quotes. Furthermore I will give her more credit as she followed-up and she asked questions regarding the accountability and conduct of the NGO and its staff. In fact I almost get the feeling she was outraged by the cari cewek/tout/social worker. I would have preferred a much harder hitting story asking more agressively about the NGO's balance sheets and expenses, and also going after the actual verification of the existence and degree of child prostitution. But frankly, I am pleasently shocked that the piece was relatively balanced and that a SPH published it.
