waktu kembali dari indonesia bulan lalu, kakakku yg di gorontalo titip sekoper penuh makanan yg sdh diolah dan dibekukan. dia paham sekali gaya hidup kami yg sering kekurangan makanan. nobuto yg pinter masak sering tidak punya waktu utk itu. aku sendiri merasa sayang kalau waktu yg berharga dihabiskan utk masak. begitu banyak koran dan majalah yg tdk sempat kubaca!
minggu kemarin, misalnya, waktu nobuto ke konferens di amsterdam, selama 4 hari penuh aku hanya makan sup dan buah2an. supnya aku bikin sendiri -- bahan dasarnya sdh tersedia di sachet, tinggal menyiapkan sayur2an. kumasukkan segala macam sayuran yg bisa kutemukan dr kulkas hingga menjadi sepanci penuh. cukup utk 4 hari, pikirku. artinya selama 4 hari aku gak bakal direpotkan soal makanan.
anyway, makanan beku pemberian kakak itu utk kami nikmati on "rainy days" -- kalau lagi kehabisan makanan atau betul2 tdk punya waktu utk masak. isinya ada 4 macam: abon roa, abon cakalang, tinorangsak dan sayur pangi. semuanya luar biasa sedap, karena dipesan khusus. semuanya kuperlakukan sebagai barang berharga karena gak mungkin ada di jepang.
tapi kakakku insists bahwa pangi dan tinorangsak harus dimakan dengan sambal. sewaktu dia tahu bahwa selama ini keduanya kami makan begitu saja, alias tanpa sambal (begini pun enak sekali!), do'i jadi penasaran luar biasa. aku diomeli. utk membela diri, kubilang bhw aku tdk tau bagaimana buat sambal utk pangi. dengan gemes do'i memaki, "bodoh sekali kamu! sambalnya gampang skali!!" dengan segera dia tuliskan resepnya. ternyata memang beda sekali kalau dimakan dengan sambal -- sedapnya berlipat ganda.
resep sambal dr kakak itu aku salin di sepotong kertas yg sekarang sdh penuh dengan coretan. seharusnya kertas ini sudah lama kubuang, tapi karena ada catatan resep, tetap menggeletak di samping komputerku. akhirnya kuputuskan utk menulis resep sambal ini di blog, supaya kertasnya bisa kubuang. so here it is: rica diulek, tomat diiris, jeruk nipis, garam dan vitsin. ittadakimasu!
Supinah is blissful. She has met a benevolent man, of well-to-do background to say the least, who does not mind her past. The knight in shining armor has finally come to rescue her from the moral mud she is entrapped in. She is a village girl who came to Jakarta and was deceived into prostitution. Now her lover wants her to quit, but her pimp would not let her go.
The story derives from a 1970 production by Sarinande Films, Bernafas dalam Lumpur (Breathing in Mud). It was a hit, an unparalleled money-maker then, and was credited as marker of the awakening of the national motion picture industry.
What was sensational about the film, critics agree, were the erotic scenes that were quite audacious for its time. But with a remake in 1991, and again in 2002, as a television mini series set in contemporary time, one wonders what is so captivating with the story that merited three productions in a little over three decades. It was also published serially in Varia magazine under the same title.
Other than sex and action scenes, which never fail to attract audience, the film features a conventional “Cinderella” plotline. The beautiful female protagonist needs deliverance from, not a callous step mother, but a pimp. A modern day Cinderella, one might say, for whom prostitution is the source of her tribulations.
The theme struck a chord with Indonesian, mostly urban, audience. Spawned by imbalanced economic development, prostitution became a feature in urban landscapes. The widening economic gap, and the stark disparity in terms of alternatives, enticed young women out of their village into the city. Unskilled and legally vulnerable, many ended up in sex industry -- some by choice (or the lack thereof), others by deception and coercion.
Today there is a new name for it -- human trafficking. The term covers a range of acts involving the transport of person through deception, violence or intimidation for the purpose of forced labor, sexual exploitation, or trading of bodily organ. Confining or holding a person to work against her/his will, as the pimp to Supinah in Bernafas dalam Lumpur, also constitutes trafficking.
The relatively new term however gives a false impression that the practice is recent. For decades women of North Sulawesi have been trafficked to Sorong and Timika to become sex workers, as have those from Entikong and Indramayu to Batam. Jakarta alone is a timeless magnet for sex enterprises.
So why “trafficking” instead of the regular “prostitution”?
Firstly, “trafficking” has a transnational connotation. It was adopted by the United Nations in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in 2000 in Palermo. Globalization has expanded a “local” practice like prostitution into an unprecedented international scale. In the globalized world, Tokyo and Dubai have become remarkably near and utterly more lucrative than Timika and Dumai.
In its adaptation however, “trafficking” encompasses the whole process of recruitment and commodification of human beings unlimited to transnational context. Thus recruiting women from Bandung for pimps in Jakarta, too, amounts to trafficking.
Secondly, the term “prostitution” tends to criminalize the women who are victimized by it. “Trafficking” appropriately shifts the spotlight onto the pimps, recruiters, and other accomplices. Within this framework, parents who sell their children into prostitution are also punishable by law. The trafficked person, on the contrary, is to be recognized as “victim” and given legal protection, medical assistance, and other forms of support for reintegration into the community.
Non-governmental organizations focusing on the issue generally use the term “trafficking” (or with Indonesianized spelling “trafiking”). Our recent inquiry in Jakarta found many of them established after 2000 or made it a working agenda subsequently. Most groups rely on funding from foreign donors, which regard trafficking a pressing human rights problem. As an NGO worker puts it, trafficking “sells” these days.
Thus one might say, in Indonesia “trafficking” is prostitution perceived through a new (somewhat foreign) spectacle. We now see the old practice from an entirely different angle -- framed by the United Nations -- where elements of human rights come into play. If in the past we see prostitution from the point of view of morality and economic exploitation, “trafficking” forces us to see it first and foremost as a violation of human dignity. The phrase “perdagangan orang” (commodification of human beings) in Indonesia’s anti-trafficking bill coveys this sentiment.
In other words, trafficking is an old practice seen through a new (imported?) conception of “human” -- one with inalienable rights and dignity. In an ironic twist, globalization does not only stimulate trafficking, but also provides an antidote -- the idea of dignified human regardless of one’s background. Thanks to the internet, accessible information and rapid communication, ideas circulate faster and wider. So do concepts of human rights.
We are inclined to credit the propagation of the new “human” in Indonesia to the development of civil society, in particular the human rights groups. Additionally, the national police anti-trafficking unit has been reportedly on a par, while lawmakers are expected to pass the anti-trafficking bill in the near future. Encouraging signs indeed.
Admittedly, dark clouds still linger on the state’s implementation of human rights. Just recently people protested for the resolution of cases such as Munir’s death, the May riots, and the Tanjung Priok incident -- to name a few. But the protests alone indicate progress in human rights education. People are increasingly aware of their rights and, more importantly, have a “language” to respond to mistreatment. (Would such protests be conceivable in the early 1990s?) Needless to say, further cultivation of human rights is imperative.
(note: tulisan di atas sudah agak lama, tapi lupa kumasukkan di blog. baru teringat sesudah terima komentar dr orang yg membaca edited version-nya di jakarta post hari ini.)
The story derives from a 1970 production by Sarinande Films, Bernafas dalam Lumpur (Breathing in Mud). It was a hit, an unparalleled money-maker then, and was credited as marker of the awakening of the national motion picture industry.
What was sensational about the film, critics agree, were the erotic scenes that were quite audacious for its time. But with a remake in 1991, and again in 2002, as a television mini series set in contemporary time, one wonders what is so captivating with the story that merited three productions in a little over three decades. It was also published serially in Varia magazine under the same title.
Other than sex and action scenes, which never fail to attract audience, the film features a conventional “Cinderella” plotline. The beautiful female protagonist needs deliverance from, not a callous step mother, but a pimp. A modern day Cinderella, one might say, for whom prostitution is the source of her tribulations.
The theme struck a chord with Indonesian, mostly urban, audience. Spawned by imbalanced economic development, prostitution became a feature in urban landscapes. The widening economic gap, and the stark disparity in terms of alternatives, enticed young women out of their village into the city. Unskilled and legally vulnerable, many ended up in sex industry -- some by choice (or the lack thereof), others by deception and coercion.
Today there is a new name for it -- human trafficking. The term covers a range of acts involving the transport of person through deception, violence or intimidation for the purpose of forced labor, sexual exploitation, or trading of bodily organ. Confining or holding a person to work against her/his will, as the pimp to Supinah in Bernafas dalam Lumpur, also constitutes trafficking.
The relatively new term however gives a false impression that the practice is recent. For decades women of North Sulawesi have been trafficked to Sorong and Timika to become sex workers, as have those from Entikong and Indramayu to Batam. Jakarta alone is a timeless magnet for sex enterprises.
So why “trafficking” instead of the regular “prostitution”?
Firstly, “trafficking” has a transnational connotation. It was adopted by the United Nations in the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in 2000 in Palermo. Globalization has expanded a “local” practice like prostitution into an unprecedented international scale. In the globalized world, Tokyo and Dubai have become remarkably near and utterly more lucrative than Timika and Dumai.
In its adaptation however, “trafficking” encompasses the whole process of recruitment and commodification of human beings unlimited to transnational context. Thus recruiting women from Bandung for pimps in Jakarta, too, amounts to trafficking.
Secondly, the term “prostitution” tends to criminalize the women who are victimized by it. “Trafficking” appropriately shifts the spotlight onto the pimps, recruiters, and other accomplices. Within this framework, parents who sell their children into prostitution are also punishable by law. The trafficked person, on the contrary, is to be recognized as “victim” and given legal protection, medical assistance, and other forms of support for reintegration into the community.
Non-governmental organizations focusing on the issue generally use the term “trafficking” (or with Indonesianized spelling “trafiking”). Our recent inquiry in Jakarta found many of them established after 2000 or made it a working agenda subsequently. Most groups rely on funding from foreign donors, which regard trafficking a pressing human rights problem. As an NGO worker puts it, trafficking “sells” these days.
Thus one might say, in Indonesia “trafficking” is prostitution perceived through a new (somewhat foreign) spectacle. We now see the old practice from an entirely different angle -- framed by the United Nations -- where elements of human rights come into play. If in the past we see prostitution from the point of view of morality and economic exploitation, “trafficking” forces us to see it first and foremost as a violation of human dignity. The phrase “perdagangan orang” (commodification of human beings) in Indonesia’s anti-trafficking bill coveys this sentiment.
In other words, trafficking is an old practice seen through a new (imported?) conception of “human” -- one with inalienable rights and dignity. In an ironic twist, globalization does not only stimulate trafficking, but also provides an antidote -- the idea of dignified human regardless of one’s background. Thanks to the internet, accessible information and rapid communication, ideas circulate faster and wider. So do concepts of human rights.
We are inclined to credit the propagation of the new “human” in Indonesia to the development of civil society, in particular the human rights groups. Additionally, the national police anti-trafficking unit has been reportedly on a par, while lawmakers are expected to pass the anti-trafficking bill in the near future. Encouraging signs indeed.
Admittedly, dark clouds still linger on the state’s implementation of human rights. Just recently people protested for the resolution of cases such as Munir’s death, the May riots, and the Tanjung Priok incident -- to name a few. But the protests alone indicate progress in human rights education. People are increasingly aware of their rights and, more importantly, have a “language” to respond to mistreatment. (Would such protests be conceivable in the early 1990s?) Needless to say, further cultivation of human rights is imperative.
(note: tulisan di atas sudah agak lama, tapi lupa kumasukkan di blog. baru teringat sesudah terima komentar dr orang yg membaca edited version-nya di jakarta post hari ini.)
