The sign at the village gate says Kadun Jaya, but everyone calls it Kilo Sepuluh, or Ten K, because it is 10 kilometres out of town. The town is Timika, deep in the heart of Indonesian Papua and home to the best golf course, airstrip and hotel in the province, all built on the back of the world's richest gold mine, known as Freeport. Out of Timika it is different. A muddy track leads into the village, which has vegetables growing in neat rows and goats and poultry picking at garbage.
On the other side there are no families with children, only women - women who have nothing to sell but sex. Ten K is Timika's sex city, a squalid, cut-price brothel complex that provides home and hope for women. Emmy, 31, came here five months ago after her husband left her. With no skills and two children, one 15 and the other eight, she needed money fast. She lives in a room in one of the town's 20 brothels; a room that serves as home and workplace yet is too small for more than a single bed and a shelf for her neatly folded clothes.
Like most of the women here, Emmy is from Java, and like the rest of the women here, she has come with a plan to stick it out just long enough to save the price of chance at a life. With that she reckons she can start a little business back home. She is unsure what; selling fried rice perhaps. Her face confirms it. Her brothel is run by Alfonso, a local Papuan, and his wife. As with many Indonesian towns, the local authorities and the religious leaders in Timika like to keep their prostitutes together but out of sight.
Freeport struck a deal with the local government to make the complex less accessible. Ten kilometres was thought a suitable distance. Most of Freeport's 16, workforce is Indonesian men - many of them single - from other islands, so moving the village this distance was a mild discouragement. To protect the health of their workers, four Freeport doctors now come every month to conduct compulsory health checks. They give all the women regular blood tests.
The number of AIDS cases is taking off in Indonesia, but the women working here say disease is the least of their fears. They insist all clients observe the "No sex without condoms" signs. Thirty years ago there was no Timika. But the massive mine high in the mountains now fuels a swarming frontier town, full of the hopeful from across the nation, all lured by the chance of crumb's that might fall from Freeport's table.
