SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

At the sub-national level a range of local laws, regulations and by-laws are applied to
sex workers and the sex industry. These range from strict prohibitions on sex work to
regulation of officially tolerated brothel complexes.
Examples of punitive sub-national laws are:
Indonesia
the Anti-prostitution By-Law of a district in Yogyakarta;
the Anti-prostitution By-Law 2004 of Palembang;
in Aceh, the Provincial Legislature incorporated sharia offences into the criminal law
through a qanun (regulation) enacted in 2009. The Qanun Jinayah prohibits being
alone with someone of the opposite sex to whom you are not married or related
(khalwat) and adultery (zina);
Anti-prostitution By-Law in Tangerang that enables arrest of women on the grounds
that her appearance arouses suspicion that she is a sex worker; 397
Bantul Regional Regulation No. 5, 2007 Regarding Prostitution; and
DKI 398 Jakarta Regional Regulation No. 8, 2007 Regarding Public Order.
The Pornography Law of 2008 defines pornography broadly to include any picture,
photograph, conversation, body language or other messages through various forms
of communication and/or public performance that contain obscenities that violate the
norms of morality. Educational materials for HIV prevention and health promotion are not
intended to be within the definition of pornography under this law. Nonetheless, there
are concerns that this definition is so broad that the law may lead to self-censorship by
prevention workers, and restrict peer education and publication of health promotion
resources that relate to sex work.
6.3.2 Law enforcement practices
Common forms of sex work in Indonesia include: female brothel-based sex work in
registered complexes (lokalisasi) or unregistered brothels; freelance sex workers; streetbased
work employing female, male and transgender (waria) sex workers; call girls; parttime
sex workers who work as drink sellers; waitresses at truck stops, roadside beer-halls,
food stalls and snack bars; workers at massage parlours, beauty salons and spas; women
with business arrangements with expatriates who assume the role of contract wives;
young urban females who engage in high-end sex work; and professional secretaries who
provide sexual services to business contacts. 399 In some provinces, e.g., Papua and West
Papua, transactional sex (sex in exchange for good or services) is very common.
Police use the vagrancy offence under the Penal Code as the basis for targeting streetbased
sex workers. Vagrancy laws are reportedly used to harass sex workers or extort
money under threat of prosecution or detention. Police raids of public sex work sites
and Sulistyaninsih E., ‘Prostitution in Indonesia,’ in Lim L. (1998) The Sex Sector: The Economic and Social Bases
of Prostitution in Southeast Asia, Geneva: ILO, pp. 29-66, p. 57. The Law on the Eradication of the Criminal Act of
Human Trafficking (Law No. 21/2007) covers all forms of trafficking in persons.
397 Warburton E. (2007) No longer a choice, Inside Indonesia, 89, 5 January 2007; Tangerang Regional
Regulation No. 8 Series E Year 2005 Regarding Prostitution.
398 DKI refers to the Capital City District.
399 See: Surtees R., (2004) Traditional and Emergent Sex Work in Urban Indonesia Intersections: Gender,
History and Culture in the Asian Context, 2004. 10.
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