They are the largest mammals in the world living on trees. They are up to 1.5 meters tall, hairy and are becoming rarer. Orangutans, which means forest people in Malay once populated large parts of Asia through China, Thailand and Vietnam to Java.
Today they are only located on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. According to WWF, from 1973 to 2005, the orangutans lost almost half of their living space. This is due to forest changes and fires. Today they are threatened with extinction with only 50,000 species being still alive in the wild.
While the WWF is trying to protect the habitat of the great apes and in in providing education to combat poaching, one horrendous crime where the orangutans are victimized cannot be be prevented by the international wilderness preservation and environmental protection NGO.
The crime where some female orangutans have to live in Indonesian brothels providing sex relief to humans there.
When orangutan females are found by the “pimps”, they are often threatened with immediate death, because the brothel operators are interested mainly in the newborn females. Such young orangutan females are sold into sex slavery, where the motto is: the younger the better, because it is easier to educate younger apes to get used to humans.
Young orangutans who fall into the hands of this prostitution ring experience hell on earth. They are distributed among villages and trained as domestic servants. At best, they later get to work in local bars.
When they land in the brothel, there have agonizing years before them. The females are shaved and made up. Dozens of apes pass away each day. The strong animals do not fight because they are used to humans. The great apes cater to customers who do not have much money.
In the wild, the animals are up to 50 years old, but in the brothels they seldom live beyond 20 years. The animals suffer depression and memory loss. And some apes also try to end their lives.
Indonesia is dominated by corruption and poverty, as such it is almost impossible to stop such cruel acts. Attempts by animal welfare groups to liberate the orangutan sex slaves can only be undertaken with heavy police intervention, while the villagers resist such police action with arms.