UNAIR NEWS – Book review was one of the pre- national work meeting of Association of Indonesian College Publishers Association (APPTI) at Universitas Airlangga. Grey Chicken in the Whirlpool of Money and Suffering book review  written by Prof. Bagong Suyanto, professor of Economic Sociology, took place at Airlangga University Press on Wednesday, October 4.

Grey Chicken was written when he worked at UNICEF as a consultant for child labor. In 1999-2001, Bagong wrote 12 books and one of them is Grey Chicken. From that book, Bagong also wrote another book entitled Prostituted Children: Victims of Exploitation in the Commercial Sexual Industry . This book became Bagong’s dissertation as a requirement for graduating doctoral program at UNAIR.

Grey Chicken refers to students involved in the practice of prostitution. Professor who writes actively in mass media said that there are many things that cause a teenager to become a grey chicken. Some of the factors are broken home family, women who became victims of child abuse, women incest victims, besides the temptation of friends who had first become grey chicken,

Grey Chicken victims are vulnerable to HIV / AIDS and become victims of exploitation, mainly by pimps who use their services.

Book review was not only attended by college students, but also high school students around the city of Surabaya. A participant from one of the high schools asked a question, “So, what should we do if we have colleagues or close friends  who become grey chicken?”

Bagong said not to blame the grey chicken victims  because, each victim has a different background.

In the book review, Bagong also gave criticism to Dolly localization closure by Mayor of Surabaya Tri Rismaharini. He said the closing of Dolly by training the sex workers there, giving some capital, then repatriated them to their hometown, not the right solution. Closing Dolly requires thorough process and studies.

“Dolly’s localization victim approach should be personal. It cannot be generalized. Each of them has different social problems, “Bagong said.

Bagong regretted the closure of Dolly this way. There will be new undetected locatizations.

In addition to Grey Chicken published in March 2017 then, Bagong is currently preparing his new book which is originated from his research on incest victims . (*)

Author: Binti Q. Masruroh

Editor: Nuri Hermawan