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Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara. Sisters Juriyansi and Kusmiasih could not believe their luck when they were offered high-paying jobs at a beach resort in Senggigi on Lombok Island.

“They promised us jobs at a five-star hotel in Lombok and paid for our plane tickets to get here,” said Juriyansi, who is from East Jakarta.

Aprilia Sari, from Cilacap in Central Java, was promised the same gig and, like the sisters, took up the offer without a second thought.

They were told the job paid Rp 3.5 million ($395) a month after deductions by the recruitment agency, which to the three women, all in their early 20s, still seemed like a godsend.

But their elation did not last long, with the reality of the situation turning out to be far from what their recruiters had described. When they arrived in Senggigi, the penny dropped: They would not be working at a five-star hotel, but at one of the seedy karaoke bars found in West Nusa Tenggara’s tourist areas.

“They told us we’d have to accompany the customers while they sang and drank,” Sari told the Jakarta Globe on Friday. “They also said that if the customers started grabbing us, we weren’t allowed to resist. Then they told us to dress sexy and to learn to dance erotically.”

But the nasty surprises did not end there. The women said that during their training period, they were made to drink alcohol and to dance suggestively. They were also ordered to assume fake identities: Susan, Vera and Indah.

“We kept refusing but they forced us,” Juriyansi said. “We were so frightened.”

She said the nature of the training and the repeated orders not to resist being groped and fondled convinced them they were being primed for the sex trade.

“That’s not what we signed up for,” she said. “We came out here to earn an honest living, not to become tramps or escorts or to be manhandled by horny old men.”

The women said they just wanted to go home. “We were scared of what would happen if we stayed on,” Juriyansi said.

After three days of training, the women decided enough was enough and they ran away on Friday, finding their way to the local branch of the Women’s Legal Aid Foundation (LBH Apik).

Fauzy Yoyok, provincial coordinator for the foundation, said the trio’s case could be categorized as human trafficking.

“We’ll assist them in getting back home to their families and ensuring that they get the full protection of the law,” he said.

He added the foundation would also report the case to the National Police in Jakarta, given that the sisters had been recruited in the capital.

Fauzy said that since running away from the karaoke parlor, the women had received several threats to pay fines amounting to million of rupiah for failing to honor their contracts.

“They keep getting these threatening cellphone text messages from the recruiters, who also send similar messages to their families,” he said.

“That’s why they’re reluctant to report the case to the West Nusa Tenggara Police and instead want to go straight to the National Police in Jakarta.”

According to LBH Apik, only 20 percent of human trafficking cases in the province are successfully prosecuted in court, where the perpetrators face up to four years in prison. The remaining 80 percent of cases that go unresolved largely involve undocumented migrant workers and foreign nationals.

The foundation also says the practice of recruiting women from outside the province to work as prostitutes in its fast-developing tourism sector is growing more common because of sophisticated trafficking syndicates.