The “invisible” sex industry
One of the many nightclubs in Wanchai
It is not rare to see pictures of massage girls in lingerie posted on the door along the red light district in Hong Kong. Beyond the legalised one – woman brothel, what do we know about the hidden and underground sex industry?
Sex industry, involving foreign women, is complicated but systematic to arrange girls from the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Columbia, mainland China and Europe for sex works.
Little did we know the organised prostitutions would exist across Hong Kong. To break it down, there are two common practices, namely the bar girls in Wan Chai, and the others working at brothels and hotels that scatter across the city, for example, Tsim Sha Tsui, Prince Edward and Yuen Long.
Bar girls and sex workers in Wan Chai and Tsim Sha Tsui
Maylin Hartwick, pastor’s wife at Harmony Baptist church, has been dedicated to sex workers outreach in Wan Chai’s red light district for four years. She has been visiting the bars regularly and getting to know the sex workers and their stories.
She says, “there are two types of girls in the bar, those who are hired by the bar through agency and those who are called freelance.”
The difference is those hired by the bar enter Hong Kong with a working visa, called entertainer visa, and they owe the bar at least HK$30, 000 for air ticket, visa and other fees even before arriving at Hong Kong. And the freelance girls come with tourist visa first, which allow them to stay legally for two weeks, then the mamasan – the female pimp works out their domestic worker visa within the two weeks. These girls need to pay the mamasan and their fake employers for the visa fees, with additional HK$5,000 monthly for a bed space .
In an email enquiry to Hong Kong Police Force (the Police), when foreign nationals with domestic worker visas are arrested for sex works, the employers will only be charged if evidences prove that they have prior knowledge or are benefitted from the sex trade.
A group of women was just leaving from a nightclub in Wanchai
As time goes by, the girls drop their guard and are willing to share with Hartwick how they earn money in the bar. The strategy is to get the clients drunk as the bar girls can keep the commission made from drinks - half will go to them while another half to the bar.
Another typical arrangement involves the client paying HK$5,000 for a whole night with a sex worker. Only HK$1,000 would go to the girl, while the rest would all go to either the bar owner or mamasan.
Many argue if the girls were brought in consensus to engage in sex works, would it be still qualified as trafficking? Tina Chan, the project manager at STOP, a frontline local anti – trafficking organisation, agrees most of the sex workers know what they are going to do, but they experience other abuses, because of which the whole situation could still be regarded as sex trafficking.
“I met some bar girls in Wan Chai telling us they cannot go outside freely, can only stay in the bar or outside the bar to attract customers,” Chan says. Pimps or bar owners were there to oversee the girls. In some cases, bar owners or mamasan confiscate their passports to prevent them from leaving Hong Kong.
Chan highly suspect that the sex industry in Wan Chai especially the red light district is controlled by transnational organized crime groups that have connections with the gangsters in the villages or areas where the sex workers come from. This also means that the crime groups could threaten the sex workers. “We have encountered some cases when the bar owner told the girl if they escape, their families will know what they are doing in Hong Kong. It isn’t a physical abuse, but more like a psychological abuse,” Chan says.
The United Nations (UN) defines human trafficking with a broad perspective. They consider not only the situation of coercion, abduction, fraud and deception, but also chances of abuse of power, vulnerability of the victims and the presence of payments or benefits to a person in control of the victims.
Sex work through operating what is usually called “one – woman brothel” is legal in Hong Kong. However, if it involves transferring a person in or out of the city for prostitution, the penalties range from 10 years of imprisonment to life imprisonment.
Chan criticises the current law for being inadequate to identify and protect victims of sex trafficking. She says the Police will only consider the foreign sex workers “irregular migrants” and prosecute them for violating the immigration law, neglecting the fact that they could be the victims of sex trafficking.
Sex workers at brothels and hotels
Brothels in Jordan district promoted by a website
Sex workers at brothels and hotels are even more obscure. They normally arrive on tourist visas, and have to travel back and forth every fortnight between Hong Kong and mainland China to avoid overstaying. The recruiters will ask the travel agency to create false hotel reservation for the sex workers to cross the border. They will have to pay for the hotel reservations although they will not stay there and will return to Hong Kong the same day.
Upon arrival, there are cars waiting at the airport and bringing the sex workers to the brothels or hotel rooms directly. The brothels and spots scatter across the city, for example, Prince Edward, Mong Kok, Tsim Sha Tui and Yuen Long, and are monitored by the pimps. These girls travel around Asia like Indonesia, Singapore, and South Korea for sex works.
In a study entitled “Trafficking of Women into Hong Kong for the Purpose of Prostitution”, former law professor at the University of Hong Kong Robyn Emerton collected data of sex trafficking and conducted interviews with sex workers and different non-governmental organisations in the 1990s.
Emerton pointed out the organised prostitution groups were connected with triad. In some cases a sham marriage between a foreign sex worker and a Hong Kong local was set up in order to convert a tourist visa into a dependent’s visa.
It remains uncertain if the sham marriage is still commonplace today, though the practice surely involves an organised prostitution ring to gain considerable profit.
In March this year, Hong Kong Police Force (the Police) arrested six people involved of running an organised prostitution ring and 65 sex workers. According to Apply Daily, the pimps recruited young women from South Korea, mainland China and Hong Kong, and arranged tourist visa for the foreign sex workers. They hired make – up artists and photographers to take photos, advertised the business on websites and smartphone apps, and brought the clients to the hotel where the sex workers stayed.
The investigation revealed that the client paid HK$2,500 to HK$6,000 for one deal, and the group took 60 percent of it as commission and earned estimated HK$100000 in a month.
Evidences of the Police's crackdown on an organised prostitution ring. Photo: HK01
Archana Kotecha, head of the legal section at Liberty Asia, a regional institute battling against trafficking, says the government and law enforcement fall short in recognising and identifying victims of different forms of trafficking. Due to lack of a comprehensive definition of human trafficking, victims are at higher risk of being criminalised and deported.
Among the sex workers, five South Korean women were sentenced to six weeks in jail for breaching of conditions of stay.
The government, on the contrary, denies the city is a destination, transit and source territory for sex trafficking. Last year, over 1,000 government officials from the Security Bureau, Department of Justice, Police, Immigration Department, Social Welfare Department and Labour Department received local or overseas training on human trafficking.
Kotecha hopes the government can be more transparent on the training and include more frontline non- governmental organisations in the process to provide opinion.
