ID Nugroho, Surabaya – Eighteen underage prostitutes were recently held at Surabaya Police Headquarters for several days after being picked up by officers during a raid on the city's Dolly red-light district.

The girls were picked up March 1 during a raid on Dolly – believed to be one of the largest red-light districts in Southeast Asia – after police received information on the presence of child sex workers in the area.

"We immediately conducted a raid and picked up 43 girls believed to be child prostitutes," Surabaya Police chief of detectives Adj. Sr. Comr. Mulyono said recently.

Officers determined 18 of the girls were under the age of 20, which according to the Criminal Code makes them legally minors. Of these 18 girls, four were found to be below the age of 18, which under the 2002 Child Protection Law makes them underage.

"Those girls who are underage will be returned to their parents. Meanwhile, the police will interrogate five people believed to have acted as their pimps," said Mulyono.

This case underlines the fact that the trafficking of children remains a major problem in East Java, according to Suratman, coordinator of the group Children in Need of Special Protection.

He told The Jakarta Post the actual number of underage children working as prostitutes in Dolly was probably much higher than any official figures. The Dolly red-light district, according to Suratman, is a known "haven" for child prostitution.

"According to our investigations, sexually promiscuous men come to Dolly to have sex with child prostitutes," Suratman said.

He said many of the men who engaged in sex with child prostitutes were under the false belief that having intercourse with an underage girl was somehow beneficial for their health. "The number of child sex workers has increased because of the high demand," he said.

Suratman urged police to continue monitoring brothels in Surabaya, especially in the Dolly red-light district. He said non-governmental organizations working on the issue often had trouble rescuing child sex workers from brothels, and needed more cooperation from authorities. "It is difficult to get inside the brothels that employ child sex workers," he said.

Suratman said rehabilitation programs were vital to prevent former child sex workers from slipping back into the life. In many cases, police will detain underage girls for prostitution, and as soon as they are released they return to their pimps because they have no other options.

Suratman said the authorities had to do more than arrest underage prostitutes; they had to prepare them to return to normal lives with their families and communities. "Child victims of prostitution should be taught skills to earn a living, while their families and their communities should be prepared to accept them back," he said.