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Kalla not worried by 'legalised prostitution'
Indonesia's vice president said he saw nothing wrong with Arab men paying local women to marry and then divorcing them days or hours later, and suggested the practice, dismissed by critics as legalised prostitution, could boost tourism.
- AP
- Published: 00:00 June 30, 2006
Jakarta: Indonesia's vice president said he saw nothing wrong with Arab men paying local women to marry and then divorcing them days or hours later, and suggested the practice, dismissed by critics as legalised prostitution, could boost tourism.
Jusuf Kalla made the off-the-cuff remarks at a travel industry seminar on how to attract more Arab visitors to Indonesia. It was not clear whether he was joking, though his comments caused laughter in the audience.
Kalla said that many Arab tourists currently travelled to the hill town of Puncak near Jakarta to enter into short-term marriage contracts with Indonesian women.
"We need different kinds of marketing campaigns, more targeted. At the moment most Arabs go to Puncak. If they go there looking for widows or divorcees that is not our business, it is not a problem.
"So what if the man goes home, the lady gets a small house, that is good isn't it?"
Women activists say the weddings, which are not recognised by the state but are blessed by Islamic clerics for a fee, they are a form of legalised prostitution and encourage poor families to sell their daughters for sex.
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