North Sumatra Police have detained three women for allegedly selling young workers to Malaysian procurers, a local police chief has said.
Head of the criminal unit Comr. Darmawan Sutawijaya said Friday the suspects -- Karmilah alias Inong, Netty Rosmawati Hasibuan, Ijah -- had recently sold five young girls to a procurer in Malaysia's Penang Island.
"We suspect the three women are part of an international human trafficking syndicate," he told tempointeraktif.com.
He said the suspects usually approached girls and women between 10 and 20 years old, and offered them jobs that paid Rp 4.7 million (US$420) a month to work in salons in Malaysia.
"To disguise their crimes, they manipulated the girls' ages, for example, by saying they are 21 instead of 16, so they met the minimum age requirement," he said, adding the three had also been selling girls to agents to work as prostitutes in Riau province.
"In that province, we found three girls who were forced to work as prostitutes in a cafe Netty owned, located near the border of North Sumatra and Pekanbaru." (ewd)
