SEAToday.com, Jakarta - In North Jakarta, there is a magnificent mosque building known as the Jakarta Islamic Center (JIC) Mosque. Located on Kramat Jaya Raya Street, Koja, this mosque is the Jakarta Center for Islamic Studies and Development. But did you know that the area around the mosque has a dark history?

Decades ago, the area was the Kramat Tunggak Localization, which was called the largest localization in Southeast Asia in the 1970-1999 era. Kramat Tunggak Localization was originally the Kramat Tunggak Social Rehabilitation Location, which was inaugurated by the then Governor of DKI Jakarta, Ali Sadikin. Initially, Lokres was built to care for Jakarta's sex workers, most of whom came from Pasar Senen, Kramat and Pejompongan. 

However, instead of being a place of counseling, the place where sex workers gather has become an opportunity for some pimps to persuade sex workers to return to work as comfort women. For this reason, the people living in the area demanded that Kramat Tunggak be closed down. 

In response to this demand, the then Governor of DKI Jakarta, Sutiyoso, formed a social engineering team. Sutiyoso initiated the idea of establishing the Jakarta Islamic Center in the area, which was discussed in a forum with various elements of society in 2001. 

Citing the Jakarta Encyclopedia, JIC was inaugurated by Sutiyoso on March 4, 2003. JIC is now a symbol of the successful transformation of a social structure from black to white. The dark past associated with the area is slowly fading and transforming with the sound of human children reciting the verses of the Quran.