Indonesia and World Tourism News

Hadi DP Mahmud

JAKARTA, INDONESIA
23-Sep-07

RAMADHAN in Jakarta is a wee bit different than in Brunei. News in the sultanate becomes drag (and dull) as the holy fasting month carries on. Activities and events are played down to a minimum to conserve the energy of those fasting. Only the nation’s foodstalls appear to be truly eventful. Towards the end of the day, the stalls are usually packed with adults and kids who have only one thing foremost on their minds _ food.

Just the same, Muslims in Jakarta typically break their daily fast in a festive atmosphere that is not complete without the special meals they craved all day. But watch the news, and the difference is there to see.
Some two million Jakartans live well below the poverty line. In the month during which Muslims are encouraged to give, this makes Ramadhan a peak season for beggars and the homeless.

Then there is begging, one level up. In light of what the media calls ‘lucrative begging’, Jakarta has seen vegetable or fruit sellers on its streets resorting to the art of pity-seeking to boost their income during the month. (It also happens to be a month of fasting, an activity at which most beggars excel.) Many of these people aren’t normally beggars, but are banking on increased generosity during Ramadhan.

Lucrative begging is a phenomenon that happens all over the world. The Gulf News has reported an increase in the number of street beggars in Lahore, Pakistan. Beggars in Lahore can earn more than 20,000 rupees a month, by some estimates _ more than the roughly 4,600 rupees per month people earn on average in Pakistan. A female beggar in Jakarta said, “I earn Rp30,000 a day from begging. I would not get that much if I was still selling vegetables.”

However, Jakarta recently introduced a bylaw that will make life for Jakarta’s beggars more difficult. It will become illegal to beg on Jakarta’s streets. Here’s the catch _ it will also be illegal to give to beggars.

Prostitution, considered a sin in Islam, is also a well-known trade in the world’s largest Muslim country. There are no laws banning prostitution in Indonesia, home to an estimated 650,000 sex workers. Another thriving market in Indonesia is tobacco. The tobacco market in Indonesia is the world’s fifth largest, and the country’s $10 billion tobacco industry provides jobs for seven million people.

Now, during the fasting month, the two trades are about to be fused together.

After banning prostitutes from soliciting during the holy fasting month, The Jakarta Post reported that Indonesian authorities are in talks of offering sex workers positions in key cigarette producing jobs.

In Java island’s Malang district, officials plan to give sex workers money to buy tobacco and paper and train them to produce hand-rolled cigarettes, which will be supplied to cigarette factories.

“We can’t ask them to stop operating during Ramadhan without giving them an alternative means of income, as this is our moral obligation,” Ihwanul Muslimin, head of Malang’s public order police unit, was quoted as saying in The Jakarta Post.

Other than that, the fasting month is the same throughout as it is celebrated in Brunei. Mosques are filled with people performing the tarawih prayers, and charitable acts are seen throughout the month.

Source: The Brunei Times