Governance of prostitution through collective actions leading to uncertain sustainable empowerment: experience from Surabaya, Indonesia

Organized prostitution has been growing in Surabaya City, and it has contributed to the growth of informal economy, as the main source of income for thousands of local people for decades. Using in-depth interviews with diverse informants, observation, and secondary data, this study shows that despite the advantages, the Indonesian Council of Islamic Scholars (MUI) perceives prostitution as an immoral attitude. On behalf of the Moslem community, they insisted the government remove it totally. Although the city government was doubted, with law enforcement supported by coordinated collective actions, it was finally able to close all the prostitution locations in the city in an authoritative manner. Subsequently, the city government provided empowerment programs for improving former procurers and prostitutes who were non-indigenous Surabaya residents, but it was unsuccessful, since it was insufficient and unsustainable to meet their needs, and it did not encompass all of them. Consequently, some of them still carried out their activities in secret, and many others moved out to other locations of the city and still conducted the same activities as prostitutes. The empowerment program for prostitution-impacted indigenous residents of Surabaya seems to be successful but it was in jeopardy since it was totally dependent on the policy made by the current mayor, personally. Therefore, their future might be at risk when she is not in the power anymore