INTRODUCTION

This chapter visits Indonesia's latest criminalization against extramarital sex, including commercial sex. I discuss how contextually important it is for Indonesia, as the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, to discourage, if not eliminate, extramarital sex, both commercially and non-commercially. I, then, engage in the scholarly discourse on how the country cannot crack down on its extramarital sex without eradicating the socio-economic and institutional root causes of commercial sex. In Southeast Asia, sex tourism, prostitution and sex trafficking are rampant and normalized to some degree (Curley 2014; Dahles 2009). Eradicating these root causes is the ultimate solution to Indonesia's decision to punitively bar local populations from engaging in extramarital sex. Both intranational and international policies will be highlighted and summarized in this chapter to present how Indonesia can address the issues of sex work and trafficking at its best in the long term.

CONTEXTUAL IMPORTANCE OF CRACKDOWN ON EXTRAMARITAL SEX IN INDONESIA

In Indonesia, per Islamic law, extramarital sex has been religiously and politically seen as immoral, wrongful and socially undesirable (Crouch 2009). Premarital sex, extramarital sex, queer sex and commercial sex have all been labelled as immoral sex in Indonesian society. Owing to gendered freedom restriction and cultural norms, there is a general expectation throughout Indonesia that men will have extramarital sex, as per Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia: Sexual Politics, Health, Diversity and Representations (Bennett and Davies 2015).

INTRODUCTION

This chapter highlights seven major socio-economic root causes of commercial sex engagement. These are poverty, informal social control, formal social control, a lack of positive socialization, peer influence, cultural deviance and a shortage of education opportunities. The chapter follows by assessing policy development and suggesting policy recommendations that are conducive to mitigating, attenuating and even eradicating these socio-economic root causes of, underage or not, sex work. Understanding the socio-economic root causes of sex work in Indonesian contexts serves as the foundation of the development of Chapter 5, where I will visit Indonesia's anti-extramarital sex law and argue how such criminalization is associated with the country's tolerance of and response to prostitution.

POVERTY

Like other developing Southeast Asian countries, poverty, in both urban and rural forms, has been known as a pressing societal issue that disproportionately affects the vulnerability of people with socio-economic disadvantages in Indonesia (Riswanda, Mills, and Nantes 2017). In this section, I explain how poverty results in the proliferation of prostitution and sex trafficking in Indonesia.

In Indonesia, especially in urban slums and remote, impoverished and rural communities, residents have been subject to significant impacts of poverty (Minnery et al. 2013). Here these residents living in poverty usually face a shortage of basic necessities, including education, food and shelter (Dhanani and Islam 2002; Jones 2017). Their encounters with socioeconomic disadvantages make them very vulnerable to being exploited by, for example, sex traffickers, as briefly discussed in the preceding chapters.

INTRODUCTION

On 13 April 2023, I returned to Taipei City, Taiwan, after spending the preceding months in Boston, Cambridge (United Kingdom), Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. I was appointed as a visiting fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica in Taiwan and a fellow at Harvard University Asia Centre in Boston in 2022/23. As my research endeavours in Boston had already been wrapped up, I relocated to Taipei City to fulfil my research errands prior to the end of my visiting fellowship appointment contract (i.e., 30 June 2023). On 18 April 2023, I met my native Taiwanese friend who has been a typical digital nomad and usually spends her time in Tokyo, Taipei City and Europe. We were having a conversation over a few cups of ice-drip coffee. I told her I was recently working on a monograph on Indonesia's extramarital sex criminalization—the book that you are now reading. She was taken aback by the topic of my research investigation not only because she had not realized Indonesia has criminalized anti-extramarital sex, but more because she had never expected any Asian country of today would practise such a societally controversial and perhaps “morally outdated and/or conservative” law (note: In Chapter 5, I will explain why passing such a law is contextually important to Indonesia).

INTRODUCTION

Addressing the socio-economic root causes of prostitution is essential, as such an approach helps disincentivize Indonesian women and girls from entering the sex industry. However, if there are significant institutional loopholes when governing people's behaviours, disciplines and morality (such as the discussion of the lack of e-regulation on the Internet to crack down on cyber-sex crime), organized sex crime groups can continue to exploit the loose regulatory, legislative, judiciary and law enforcement mechanism to arrange and deliver sex trafficking and prostitution activities (Awaludin 2019). Therefore, this chapter, in order to minimize Indonesian nationals’ violation of anti-extramarital sex, or specifically commercial sex, discusses how commercial sex is institutionally constructed. I then examine the relevant policies to understand how the formation of the institutional mechanism against sex work can be strengthened.

POOR GOVERNANCE, POVERTY AND SEX WORK

Indonesia ranks 130th in the globe, per the Human Development Index, indicating that poverty and inequalities are salient within the country (Antara News 2022). Thus far, this book examines and discusses how poverty, inequalities, a lack of human investment in the form of the distribution of education opportunities and engagement in sex work are interrelated. A primary reason leading to Indonesia's poor human development is the poor governance of the Indonesian government.

As of writing this epilogue, I am reading Stiglitz's (2004) Globalisation and Its Discontents in my cosy apartment in New Taipei City—on the outskirts of Taipei City, Taiwan. Stiglitz argues the importance of sequencing and timing. The Nobel Prize-winning economist notes one of the major policy mistakes performed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in the twentieth century was overlooking the importance of sequencing and timing when applying national and regional policies and interventions. While these national and regional policymaking outputs were supposed to raise the quality of life and national competitiveness of the Global South, very often any improper sequenced policy implementation would counter-discourage developing countries from reaching economic growth and social development.

I am thinking about the importance of sequencing and timing when curbing Indonesia's sex work. It is noteworthy that Indonesia's parliament passed the criminal code against the practice of extramarital sex upon the end of the global public crisis of Coronavirus. While I don't think the timing of passing such a criminal code was intentionally designed (as Indonesia had endeavoured to pass such a code for years), criminalizing extramarital sex soon after the declaration of the end of a pandemic could be beneficial to Indonesia's crackdowns on prostitution and sex trafficking. Owing to the economic downturns caused by the pandemic, Indonesia experienced a budget deficit of 3.0 per cent and 2.4 per cent in 2021 and 2022, respectively. However, upon the end of the public health crisis, the IMF (2023) forecasts that Indonesia will enjoy a 5.0 per cent national economic growth in 2023. These figures presented by the IMF demonstrate that Indonesia is recovering well from the economic downturns and repositions itself on the trajectory to reach more economic success ahead.

Under the climate of positive national economic development, more foreign and domestic investments are plausibly recorded, more job opportunities are created, unemployment rates fall, the availability of public funds that can be used for implementing social protection and pro-poor policies increases, and fewer underprivileged women and children in Indonesia shall experience transitorily or chronically financial hardships.

INTRODUCTION

This book engages in the sociological discourse on the (de-)construction of extramarital sex in commercial forms in Indonesia. I explain and address related social theories such as social control and social learning theories and the discussion about the nuanced relationships between poverty and crime in order to support my declaration of how prostitution and sex trafficking occur and persist in Indonesian contexts from a socio-economic perspective. Also, I apply additional theories named cultural deviance and social disorganization theories in order to support the rationalization of how prostitution and sex trafficking are both socio-economically and institutionally constructed. So long as how sex work is being constructed is detailed and clarified, I, in this book, am allowed to suggest how deconstruction should be practised.

SOCIAL CONTROL THEORY

The justification of how juvenile and adult cohorts express criminality or delinquency can be supported by the social control theory. According to the theory, those expressing criminality or delinquency often lack the social forces to harness them from presenting deviance in terms of their behaviours. The social control theory states that people are discouraged from taking part in criminality or delinquency by their social bonds to society (Agnew 1991). Negative life events, such as poor treatment by others (like parents, teachers and peers), lessen the strength of social control over people's criminality or delinquency. For example, when parents and teachers tend to apply devaluing and demeaning approaches to educate the younger generations, the latter cohorts are at higher risk of developing substantial strains that foster their expression of criminality and delinquency. Those who consistently encounter parental absence, denial or rejection, in addition to whoever encounters school and peer bullying, are major drivers of the diminished levels of social bonds to communities and society.