The Phenomenology of Undercover Prostitution at Padang City: According to Feminism’s View

. The practice of prostitution is a classic problem that always exists in the midst of human life, but still feels new to talk about and discuss it. Padang as one of the Islamic cities in Indonesia, it turns out that there are many cases of undercover prostitution. Unfortunately, the person are mostly female students, including students. In carrying out their actions, they also do not work alone. Most of them, use the services of pimps. They do this, so that their actions are safe from police raids. In the sense of the word, the pimp acts as their bodyguard. The functional elements that will be studied in this study, namely the pimps and sex workers themselves. The background of this research is motivated by public unrest about undercover prostitution in the tourist area of Padang City, which is almost completely not exposed to its existence, but has a negative impact on society both socially, psychologically, religiously, and culturally. The focus of this research is directed at how the form of the social network of undercover prostitution practices and how the roles and functions of each unit in that social network. The purpose of this study is to determine the phenomenology of undercover prostitution at Padang city from the point of view of feminism. The methodology of this research is a phenomenological approach, especially the type of qualitative research. The research subjects were determined purposively, namely tour guides, taxi drivers, pimps and residents who sell around the location that is the object of research. The theoretical framework that is used as the basis for the analysis refers to the perspective of social network theory. Data were taken from a number of informants who were distributed in the field, by conducting in-depth interview techniques and data observation in the field. There were five research locations selected, each of which was a discotheque, nightclub and hotel which was always crowded with them. Furthermore, the sample data is analyzed. There are three results obtained in this study. Firstly, disguised prostitution in Padang City is a large network coordinated by the big pimps. Secondly, from the point of view of feminism, these female sex workers are tempted by the hedonistic culture of living and generally they come from broken homes. Thirdly, generally the persons are not virgin, then her lover plays the role of a pimp who will offer themselves later to a masher man. The results also show that the social network of undercover prostitution practices is formed by involving various stakeholders, such as users, taxi drivers, tour guides, commercial sex workers, nightclub business owners and the surrounding community. The social network is formed because of the same interest, especially economic interests. This study in the perspective of feminism is expected to be an input for the Padang city government to minimize all these undercover prostitution activities.