Two Women in Aceh Arrested Over Luring Girls to Sex Trade in Singapore

Banda Aceh, TAG – Police in Aceh province have arrested two women they suspect of trafficking teenage girls to Singapore, an officer said.
“The two suspects were arrested on January 14 and 17 after we got the information from the two victims,” said Adj. Comr. Elfiana from the Aceh Police’s women and children division.

Elfiana said the two victims, both 16, told police that they were lured by the two women to go with them to Singapore via the nearby island of Batam, off Sumatra’s coast, on Dec. 12.

They told police that the women forced them to provide sexual services to men while in Singapore. They said that they had to provide the services to up to 23 men in a day.

They were allowed to return to Banda Aceh but were too ashamed to go back home. They decided to live in a hotel in the Aceh capital instead.

Elfiana said during interviewed Friday that the two girls came from poor families and had not been abused prior to leaving home.

Police, who received reports from the parents about their missing daughters, found them one day while they were at an Internet cafe.

The women who were arrested were only 19 years old, Elfiana said. They too, he added, had once been victims of the very scheme that they used to trick the 16-year-old girls.

“From the questioning, it turned out that the two suspects were also once victims of this trafficking to Singapore,” Elfiana said. “They claimed they had been taken to Singapore several times.”

The victims said they had been enticed by the prospect of a free trip to Singapore with Ay, one of the suspects. But once there, they were handed to a man identified as Koko who said they had to work to pay back their travel fare.

“The two were forced to pay back their debt and were told they could do so by servicing 110 men,” Elfiana said.

They were allowed to return home after about one month and their visas had almost expired.

“According to the admission of the two victims, in Singapore there are many teenagers from other provinces such as North Sumatra, East Java and West Java, also forced to work as sex slaves,” Elfiana said.[]