Foreign ‘entertainers’ flock to RI

JAKARTA. A peek into almost all nightclubs in an area popularly known among partygoers as Kota (meaning city), located along Jl. Hayam Wuruk and Jl. Mangga Besar in Central Jakarta, offers an endless blend of overseas entertainers.

Pang, 21, a Thai dancer working in a club located on Jl. Hayam Wuruk 126, is among hundreds of girls brought into the capital to meet the rising demand for foreign entertainers as Indonesians’ purchasing power has soared amid impressive economic growth, which is among the highest in Asia.

“I earn at least Rp 2 million [US$220] a month from customer tips alone. But I can earn more if I want to go the extra mile by providing a more erotic service,” she said.

Unlike 10 years ago, Jakarta’s night entertainment businesses have seen an inflow of foreign workers, mostly sex workers and strippers, from various countries, particularly China and Uzbekistan.

But the menu has recently expanded to include a long list of offerings from countries as far as Mongolia and Ecuador.

A statistics report from the Directorate General of Immigration revealed an 82 percent increase in working visas for the entertainment industry to 4,542 last year. The entertainment sector covers professions such as massage therapists, singers, dancers, acrobatic performers and magicians.

“There’s been a flood of foreign workers in the business recently. But they’re not victims of trafficking. They work here legally,” said Entertainment, Tourism and Recreation Association (PPRHU) chairman Adrian Maelite, recently.

“Most of them are from China, Uzbekistan, Thailand and Philippine,” said Adrian, adding
that the majority worked in disco clubs, massage parlors and live music bars.

Last year, for example, the immigration office granted 206 working visas for Uzbek nationals, of which 80 percent were female workers.

Adrian said he was not surprised by the jump in the number of foreign workers as Indonesia was one
of the few countries in Southeast Asia that had a wild entertainment industry with fairly unrestricted operating hours.

Jakarta alone is home to more than 1,129 nightlife businesses, including nightclubs, discos, massage parlors, saunas, arcades and bars, employing at least 670,000 people in 2011, according to the PPRHU.

The industry in Jakarta has grown 15 percent annually in recent years with revenue estimated at least Rp 1.8 trillion (US$200 million) in 2010, according to the association.

However, Adrian warned the immigration office to be wiser in issuing working visas as local entertainers had felt the pinch of competing with the foreign workers.

“The association has proposed a composition ratio of one expatriate for every 10 local entertainers to help protect local workers,” he said.

Demand for foreign entertainers has increased particularly among Chinese-Indonesian, according to Adrian.

The immigration data revealed that there was a 10 percent rise in the number of expatriates to 55,010 last year compared to 2010. The entertainment industry was the fourth-largest takeup of the foreign workers after the industry and manufacturing, trade and construction sectors.

The number of foreign residents in Indonesia, excluding tourists and foreign emissaries, rose by 6 percent to 111,752 last year.

Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said he believed that the inflow of foreign workers had not disturbed the recruitment of local workers as most of the expatriates worked as top managers or as specialists with rare skills.

“There’s still an abundance of job opportunities for the locals. Our workforce can still compete with them,” he said. (Nani Afrida and Rendi A. Witular/ The Jakarta Post)