Sri tried to escape with the help of some of the other girls who felt sorry for her. However, she failed and was forced to go back to work in the night club. Still she refused to work as a prostitute.
“Whenever I was given to a client, instead of sleeping with them, I would talk to them, and most of them felt sorry for me,” Sri recalls. “Some of them though got angry and beat me”.
Eventually, Sri had no choice but to work as a prostitute. However, this didn’t dampen her determination to free herself. She made several more attempts to escape, even though each time she was caught red-handed and each time she was punished with a beating. The last time she was caught, the beating was so severe that she was left blind for a number of months.
It didn’t stop her trying to escape again, and this time, she finally succeeded. The night I finally escaped, I waited until everyone had fallen asleep. I tried to help the other girls – to get them to come with me. I even gave them money so they could get home. But none of them would come with me.” Finally with a heavy heart, Sri escaped on her own via the drain in the basement.
“Getting through the drain took more than one hour. It smelt disgusting, like something had died,” remembers Sri. It was seven o’clock the next morning when Sri finally succeeded in escaping from the night club. She headed straight for the nearest police station. Unfortunately, the first person the police called was her aunt, the very person who had sold Sri to the nightclub. However Sri refused to go home with her aunt and instead asked to be taken to friends of her family. They took her to hospital for treatment where she stayed for a number of days.
During her physical and emotional recovery, Sri, who was born a Muslim, began attending church services. “Yeah, I got a lots of spiritual guidance. I felt safe and comfortable there and I got a lot out of Christian teachings. I would attend sermons whenever I could and I even memorized some hymns,” said Sri.
Sri has now returned to her home in Indramayu. After a number of attempts to report what happened to her to police she has decided not to pursue her case further, saying she has had nothing but bad experiences.
Sri tells me how she has previously tried to report her case in a number of different police stations, including the Indramayu Police Headquarters. However, the police, she claims, have treated her dismissively and inappropriately. She got the impression that they did not take her case seriously and that by reporting it she was wasting their time.
“They acted like my case was a joke,” she says. “Some of them were flirting with me even though they were supposed to be doing their job. And when I complained about the way they were acting, they snapped at me and wouldn’t listen to what I was saying. I was really disappointed with the way I was treated. It was the same in other police stations. You give them money but they still didn’t do their job seriously,” explains Sri.
A Slap in the Face
The Women and Children’s Services Unit at the Indramayu Central Police Station claims that there had never been a trafficking case reported involving a person called Sri.
