Cheaply built cafes are scattered around
Bali, they dot the island like beach umbrella’s dot Seminyak beach. They exist
on the fringes of most towns and villages and they are often utilized by
local men seeking to socialise, sing, and obtain sex. These bars tend to be dark,
dingy and sometimes dangerous and they generally serve up warm beer along with
their less than enthusiastic hostesses.
Most cafes and karaoke bars that are
operating in Bali run on the same system. When a customer enters he is
approached and asked if he would like a drink and company. If the answer is
yes, the waitress then organises a few women to be paraded and the punter is
expected to choose his acquaintance for the evening. He is then required to buy
her drinks while she is in his company. Because the women that work in this setting
receive a commission on any drink the customer buys, they often pour and drink
as fast as veteran alcoholics. Working
at cafe is a very hard lifestyle for these ladies and a number of them end
their evenings by throwing up.
The majority of the women that work in
smaller cafés are poor and they speak limited English. They are often recruited
from rural areas and they are offered work contracts that include travel and
accommodation expenses. They are then required to pay back this money back over
a set period of time. And because they are given a wage that barley covers
their living expenses they discover that this unmanageable. Unfortunately a
number of these women then find themselves trapped and they spend far more time
working in these café’s than they originally planned or they were promised.
There are also a percentage of women that
are labouring in smaller remote cafes because they have put themselves out to
pasture. These women have realised that they can no longer work the tourist
strip because they are too old or they are visibly sick with H.I.V. Because of this some of the smaller outlying
Karaoke bars could be considered to be hotbeds of the virus. And it has been
documented that the sickness rate in a few of these smaller rural
establishments runs as high as 50 percent.
There is currently a push by the government
to shut these places down and they are randomly raided with Bali’s Governor
claiming that they promote prostitution and drug use. It is generally the
working girls that get caught up in these raids and not the proprietors of the café
or Karaoke bar. The girls then end up with little more than a fine of about one
hundred thousand RP (AUD $ 10 .00), before they are released to continue
working.
©Malcolm Scott
©Malcolm Scott
