Job Discussion Forums

[stgeorge]

i think some people need to just calm down and get a grip when talking about prostitution. it is a part of life in some parts of the world - for example in South Korea 20 percent of women between 15 and 29 work as prostitutes. are they all sex slaves? there is a western view of prostitution which is based on a strange combination of prudishness and feminism, but this view is simply not shared in most parts of the worlds. if you can't accept that go back to your own country and become a priest.

[grahamb]

Whilst I agree with stgeorge, I wouldn't like to think of anyone in my family - male or female - working as a prostitute.
As has been said so many times before, prostitution's a demand-led industry, and as demand shows no sign of waning it would be better to legalise it and thereby subject it to the kind of regulation that would benefit all involved.
Apologies for the over-long last sentence.

[arioch36]

Panama Teacher,

Interesting question. There are a very few women who actually make a profit and retire from the business...a very few. Like a football (American) running back, the peak career of these girls is very short. Some get "rescued".

For the vast majority they never lead. Drug use becomes very common for two reasons...their "manager" (there are very few truly independent operators) hook them on drugs, or they use it willingly to escape. That combined with sexual diseases, combined with unhealthy lifestyle, bad diet, sleep habits, the non sexual disease that young girls get when they are overly sexually active, all of these lead to a short career. And of course us men want girls in their prime..most popular age...young teens. Many feel that when they become 16 their career is over. Sound like a good life, yes?

Interestingly/Sadly, the longer the young girls have sex with the old men for money, the more difficult it becomes to break away emotionally.

Going to the bars, doing alcohol and other drugs, picking up Johns becomes a habit, that like any other habit, is extremely difficult to break. It is like a smoker, who has given up smoken, hates smoking, yet at certain times of the day, or in certain places or situations, they start lighting up without thinking about it...not because of the nicotine addiction, but because of the habit.

It also becomes an esteem thing for the girls. Most of these girls do come from sexual abusive, emotionally neglectful, etc backgrounds. Despite Roger's assertions, there are simply not that many girls who graduate from school, and say...i want to become a prostitute. And they uually are trained into the profession, often through force or coercion. But being successful brings rewards, even if it only means a warm blanket and bed for a night, or praise.

It becomes part of the girl who is prostituting self esteem to be able to do her job well, being able to get the job done quickly, conning the man of more money, maybe robbing him, whatever. I mean every human needs self esteem. And the only way these girls get self esteem is by succeeding at this job, same as a drug dealer, a teacher, an athelete, etc.. They also hate themselves at the same time. Also you have the Helsinki Syndrome, where hostages and the terrorist will develop a bond with each other

Other thing seen is the helpless dog syndrome. A dog might try to escape a yard to get food, or other example (Lots of such experiements) After a while of being tricked and failing to escape, the dog lays down and stops eating, gives up. This also happens to the girls, but such girls are usually gotten rid of...truly. They are no use to their handlers anymore. Drug overdose, malnutrtition leading to opportunistic diseases etc are common.

[Linda L.]

Why do foreign men working in China have such a fascination with prostitution and have to post so many threads on this subject.

Do you just have a prurian interest or do you have a solution to offer? No, just rehashing the same old stuff, over and over again.

Before you express any more opinions about a subject you have little or no experience with, other than possibly as a "john" why not abandon this topic to the gutter where it belongs?

[richard ame]

Hi Linda?
Sadly as a recent poster said this is part of every day life ,however ,I'm not sure where the connection to our industry but when has that ever being a critera ?
I do resent your implication that all men are "johns" I for one have never being a "john" and the thought of paying for that kind of service does not interest me ,but have you ever thought what would happen if they were no women to provide this type of "service" lock up your daughters . If this thread is about legalising this trade then there are strong arguements for it as is the legalization of certain substances not that I partake in that either,sorry if somethings are to difficult for you to discuss you must live in a pink bubble maybe it needs popping .

[Linda L.]

Hey Ame: If you have never even been a john then you definately have nothing constructive to contribute to the subject.

Southeast Asia

Malaysia's hot new import: Chinese sex slaves
By Baradan Kuppusamy

KUALA LUMPUR - They are confined in luxury condominiums to satisfy a select club of the rich and old in Malaysia, who visit them regularly in late afternoons. These "noon brides" are visited by patrons who wine, dine and have sex with them, before going home to their families.

But many of the women are confined, often against their will, and "shared" among a select club of like-minded rich businessmen, officials and activists report.

The "noon bride" phenomenon is only one dimension of the burgeoning trade in young women from southern China down to Malaysia. Many of them, hailing from rural areas in China, are lured on the pretext of working as office staff, nurses and interpreters.

"When I refused to work as a prostitute I was slapped, kicked and spat upon," said a woman identified only as 22-year-old Lin, whose story and that of her 23-year-old colleague Wern was published in local media in June.

"The man told me if I didn't work, I would be starved to death and never return to China," Lin told reporters. Police had rescued her after she tried to climb down from the 27th floor of a luxury hotel where she had been forced to do sex work.

Wern, who hails from Guangdong province, escaped with a help of a friendly customer, found her way to the office of a support group. She had been kicked, slapped and burned with cigarette butts to make her have sex with clients.

"Cases of forced prostitution are becoming common - we had 170 such complaints last year, and in June alone there were 24 cases," Michael Chong, head of the public complaints bureau of the Malaysian Chinese Association, said in an interview.

Chong is so popular that kind-hearted taxi drivers who transport the Chinese women from one customer to another also give them his contact numbers. It is not unusual for Chinese girls to flee suddenly, take a cab and head for Chong's office in central Kuala Lumpur.

"Previously the trade was in girls from Thailand, but now it is mostly from China," Chong said.

In May, police raided 1,740 nightspots in the major cities and towns as part of a cleanup campaign. In every one of the raids, they found Chinese women outnumbering Malaysians and other nationalities working in the clubs, most of which are thinly disguised fronts for brothels.

Activists say some girls from China, held captive in rundown budget hotels, are forced to service up do a dozen customers a day.

Lately and after police stepped up pressure against trafficking groups, syndicate members have turned to transporting the women from one home to another using cellular phones in what the media have dubbed "home delivery".

Researchers say a combination of factors - customer preference, poverty and dislocation in southern China, and a false perception that there is a lesser danger of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus, which can cause AIDS) infection from Chinese women - are reasons behind the "noon brides" phenomenon.

But Irene Fernandez, director of Tenaganita, a leading women's support group, says there is a wider backdrop against this - the tremendous expansion in trade, business, education and tourism links between Malaysia and China in recent years.

"The Chinese here and those in China have traditional cultural links but these have been expanded tremendously in the last decade," she said in an interview. "There is a keen interest here in everything China, including in young Chinese women. Human traffickers are just exploiting the links and interest.

"The girls are lured here with promises of well-paid jobs - sometimes a syndicate offers up to US$1,000 when in China they earn less than $50 a month," Fernandez said. She added that the promise of high pay is difficult to ignore, especially when the girls know that there is a large community of Chinese in Malaysia who have struck it rich.

"Stories of Malaysian streets paved in gold are completely false, but are widely believed by many foreigners who are only shown the gleaming Petronas Twin Towers but not the slums hidden behind the glamour," Fernandez said.

Government figures for 2002 show that 5,600 foreigners were deported for involvement in the sex trade, and among them, Chinese women were the second-largest group. There were 2,155 Indonesians, 1,230 Chinese, 946 Thais, 298 Vietnamese, 189 Filipinos, 138 Uzbeks and 125 Cambodians.

But these numbers do not reflect the true extent of the problem. Chong said syndicates based in Hong Kong and mainland China place advertisements in Chinese newspapers to lure the women, and provide them cash for daily expenses, airline tickets and hotel accommodation.

"Once here, the local syndicate takes over. They seize their passports and tell them to work as prostitutes to repay the expanses that are arbitrarily inflated to huge sums impossible to be repaid. It can be a lifetime trap," Chong said.

But some businessmen argue that their relationships with the women are mutually beneficial.

"They are young, slim, soft-spoken and so well mannered. I have had three China 'noon brides' in the last five years," said a 57-year-old businessman who made a fortune selling motorcycle parts in Klang, an industrial town about 30 kilometers north of the capital.

The businessman, who did not want to reveal his name, said Malaysian-Chinese businessmen used to keep mistresses in Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong. But the trend now is to buy "noon brides" from middlemen in China, Hong Kong and here, fly them over and house them in condominiums.

"It is cheaper and a lot more convenient," he said. "Noon brides are extremely popular. Just go to any upscale restaurant in the city and you can see an old man cloistered with a young, slim girl from China."

The women, he says, mostly enter as English-language students and make enough money in three years to return home rich. "Some have married and settle down here," he added.

Chinese students, numbering 10,640 last year, form the largest contingent of the 32,000 foreign students in Malaysia, which aims to be a regional education hub. This month, the government announced plans to set up regional recruitment offices in Chinese cities and double the intake of foreign students this and next year (see Malaysia's school daze, June 26.

Experts say traffickers are already exploiting these policies. They are bringing in "students" from China, paying their college fees and collecting their student identification cards before distributing them to restaurants, hotels and brothels.

"I was hired as an English lecturer and on arriving at the college found empty classrooms," said a lecturer who realized the link between trafficking and the women's enrollment as students. "The college told me to hang around, collect my wage and not to worry."

(Inter Press Service)

[Linda L.]

I have read this thread from beginning to end. I am surprised by the neanderthal thinking expressed by so many who apparently lack first hand knowledge.

Prostitution in any form, legal or illegal, is horrible. It is dehumanising and that is all there is to it!

Right after I finished my first period at age 13, my momma got out the silk linnen, dressed me in a fancy nighty and sat me on the bed. In came momma's then current "boyfriend." He unzipped his pants I I saw a man for the first time. Momma told me to open my mouth and what a surprise I got. When he exploded I almost choked to death. After he left I puked my guts out all over the floor. My momma beat me and told me to learn to like it.

During the next week momma brought two or three men to me for the same thing every night.

One week later momma brought a very big man to me but this time momma took off my panties. He hurt me badly. I had to do things no person should ever have to do, never!

This went on until I was 19. Momma made a lot of money and I never got anything but three sqaures and a roof.

I never got used to any of the perversions and now I do not like any kind of sex other than gentle loving same gender partner contact. I will never marry because just the thought of another man touching me is revolting.

Anyone who thinks any kind of prostitution is good or a great social service has never been there or done that!

[richard ame]

Hi Linda
I owe you an apology, I may not have had the experience you speak of and I thank god for small mercies I understand why you are the way you are as you said noone should have to go through that . Once again sorry .

[Roger]

It is about time someone interviewed HEIDI FLEISS for the benefit of all of us, especially those who go on religiously dishing out statistics that others compiled. There is prostitution and there is prostitution, and you are free to choose what you want to believe. Chris and his prudish followers want to believe that no one woman would do that as a career or out of sheer greed.