Prostitution in China

Shortly after taking power in 1949, the Communist Party of China embarked upon a series of campaigns that purportedly eradicated prostitution from mainland China by the early 1960s. Since the loosening of government controls over society in the early 1980s, prostitution in mainland China not only has become more visible, but can now be found throughout both urban and rural areas. In spite of government efforts, prostitution has now developed to the extent that it comprises an industry, one that involves a great number of people and produces a considerable economic output. Prostitution has also become associated with a number of problems, including organized crime, government corruption and sexually transmitted diseases. For example, a Communist Party official who was a top provincial campaigner against corruption was removed from his post after he was caught in a hotel room with a prostitute.^[1]

Prostitution-related activities in mainland China are characterised by diverse types, venues and prices. Prostitutes themselves come from a broad range of social backgrounds. They are almost all female, though in recent years male prostitutes have also emerged. A large number of Russian women work as prostitutes in China.^[2] Venues typically include hotels, karaoke venues and beauty salons.

Officially, prostitution is illegal in mainland China.^[3] The government of China has vacillated, however, in its legal treatment of prostitutes themselves, treating them sometimes as criminals and sometimes as behaving with misconduct. Since the reemergence of prostitution in the 1980s, government authorities have responded by first using the legal system, that is, the daily operations of institutions like courts and police. Second, they have relied on police-led campaigns, clearly delineated periods of intense public activity, as a form of social discipline. Despite lobbying by international NGOs and overseas commentators, there is not much support for legalisation of the sex sector by the public, social organizations or the government of the PRC.

While the sale of sexual intercourse remains illegal throughout mainland China, as of 2013 erotic massage, or more commonly known as massage with "happy endings," is legal in the city of Foshan in Guangdong province. In June of that year, the Foshan Court determined that the sale of erotic massage is not the same as prostitution.^[4]

History of Prostitution in China

Xinjiang

Prostitution was rife among Torghut women, according to the Manchu Qi-yi-shi.^[5] Kashgar's prostitutes were mentioned by Qi-shi-yi and prostitutes from among the Turkistanis were patronized by Manchus.^[6] Headscarfs were not worn by Muslim prostitutes in Xinjiang but otherwise for other Muslim women it was compulsory.^[7]

Different ethnic groups had different attitudes toward prostitution. George W. Hunter (missionary) noted that while Tungan Muslims (Chinese Muslims) would almost never prostitute their daughters, Turki Muslims (Uyghurs) would prostitute their daughters, which was why Turki prostitutes were common around the country.^[8][9]

An anti-Russian uproar broke out when Russian customs officials, 3 Cossacks and a Russian courier invited local Turki (Uyghur) prostitutes to a party in January 1902 in Kashgar, this caused a massive brawl by the inflamed local Turki Muslim populace against the Russians on the pretense of protecting Muslim women because there was anti-Russian sentiment being built up, even though morality was not strict in Kashgar, the local Turki Muslims violently clashed with the Russians before they were dispersed by guards, the Chinese sought to end to tensions to prevent the Russians from building up a pretext to invade.^[10][10][11]

After the riot, the Russians sent troops to Sarikol in Tashkurghan and demanded that the Sarikol postal services be placed under Russian supervision, the locals of Sarikol believed that the Russians would seize the entire district from the Chinese and send more soldiers even after the Russians tried to negotiate with the Begs of Sarikol and sway them to their side, they failed since the Sarikoli officials and authorities demanded in a petition to the Amban of Yarkand that they be evacuated to Yarkand to avoid being harassed by the Russians and objected to the Russian presence in Sarikol, the Sarikolis did not believe the Russian claim that they would leave them alone and only involved themselves in the mail service.^[12][13]

Uyghur prostitutes were encountered by Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim who wrote they were especially to be found in Khotan.^[14][15][16] He commented on "venereal diseases".^[17]

Temporary marriage

There were eras in Xinjiang's history where intermarriage was common, "laxity" which set upon Uyghur women led them to marry Chinese men and not wear the veil in the period after Yaqub Beg's rule ended, it is also believed by Uyghurs that some Uyghurs have Han Chinese ancestry from historical intermarriage, such as those living in Turpan.^[18] From 1911-1949 when the Guomindang ruled, Han soldiers were approached for relationships by a number of Uyghur girls.^[19]

Although banned in Islam, a form of temporary marriage which the man could easily terminate and ignoring the traditional marriage contract was created called marriage of convenience by Turki Muslims in Xinjiang and one was conducted by the repetition of the Quran's Surah Fatiha by an Emam between Ughlug Beg's great granddaughter Nura Han and the adventurer Ahmad Kamal.^[20]

Even though Muslim women are forbidden to marry non-Muslims in Islamic law, from 1880-1949 it was frequently violated in Xinjiang since Chinese men married Muslim Turki (Uyghur) women, a reason suggested by foreigners that it was due to the women being poor, while the Turki women who married Chinese were labelled as whores by the Turki community, these marriages were illegitimate according to Islamic law but the women obtained benefits from marrying Chinese men since the Chinese defended them from Islamic authorities so the women were not subjected to the tax on prostitution and were able to save their income for themselves. Chinese men gave their Turki wives privileges which Turki men's wives did not have, since the wives of Chinese did not have to wear a veil and a Chinese man in Kashgar once beat a mullah who tried to force his Turki Kashgari wife to veil. The Turki women also benefited in that they were not subjected to any legal binding to their Chinese husbands so they could make their Chinese husbands provide them with as much their money as she wanted for her relatives and herself since otherwise the women could just leave, and the property of Chinese men was left to their Turki wives after they died.^[21] Turki women considered Turki men to be inferior husbands to Chinese and Hindus. Because they were viewed as "impure", Islamic cemeteries banned the Turki wives of Chinese men from being buried within them, the Turki women got around this problem by giving shrines donations and buying a grave in other towns. Besides Chinese men, other men such as Hindus, Armenians, Jews, Russians, and Badakhshanis intermarried with local Turki women.^[22] The local society accepted the Turki women and Chinese men's mixed offspring as their own people despite the marriages being in violation of Islamic law. Turki women also conducted temporary marriages with Chinese men such as Chinese soldiers temporarily stationed around them as soldiers for tours of duty, after which the Chinese men returned to their own cities, with the Chinese men selling their mixed daughters with the Turki women to his comrades, taking their sons with them if they could afford it but leaving them if they couldn't, and selling their temporary Turki wife to a comrade or leaving her behind.^[23] The basic formalities of normal marriages were maintained as a facade even in temporary marriages.^[24] Prostitution by Turki women due to the buying of daughters from impoverished families and divorced women was recorded by Scotsman George Hunter.^[25] Mullahs officiated temporary marriages and both the divorce and the marriage proceedings were undertaken by the mullah at the same ceremony if the marriage was only to last for a certain arranged time and there was a temporary marriage bazaar in Yangi Hissar according to Nazaroff.^[26][27] Islamic law was being violated by the temporary marriages which particularly violated Sunni Islam.^[28]

Valikhanov claimed that foreigners children in Turkistan were referred to by the name çalğurt. Turki women were bashed as of being negative character by a Kashgari Turki woman's Tibetan husband- racist views of each other's ethnicities between partners in interethnic marriages still persisted sometimes. It was mostly Turki women marrying foreign men with a few cases of the opposite occurring in this era.^[29] Robert Shaw spelled it as shalghoord and interpreted the word to mean mule.^[30]

Andijani (Kokandi) Turkic Muslim merchants (from modern Uzbekistan), who shared the same religion, a similar culture, cuisine, clothing, and phenotypes with the Altishahri Uyghurs, frequently married local Altishahri women and the name "chalgurt" was applied to their mixed race daughters and sons, the daughters were left behind with their Uyghur Altishahri mothers while the sons were taken by the Kokandi fathers when they returned to their homeland.^[31]

The Qing banned Khoqandi merchants from marrying Kashgari women. Due to 'group jealously' disputes broke out due to Chinese and Turki crossing both religious and ethnic differences and engaging and sex. Turki locals viewed fellow Turkic Muslim Andijanis also as competitors for their own women. A Turki proverb said Do not let a man from Andijan into your house.^[32]

Turki women were able to inherited the property of their Chinese husbands after they died.^[33]

In Xinjiang temporary marriage, marriage de convenance, called "waqitliq toy" in Turki, was one of the prevalent forms of polygamy, "the mulla who performs the ceremony arranging for the divorce at the same time", with women and men marrying for a fixed period of time for several days are a week. While temporary marriage was banned in Russian Turkestan, Chinese ruled Xinjiang permitted the temporary marriage where it was widespread.^[34]

Chinese merchants and soldiers, foreigners like Russians, foreign Muslims, and other Turki merchants all engaged in temporary marriages with Turki women, since a lot of foreigners lived in Yarkand, temporary marriage flourished there more than it did towards areas with fewer foreigners like areas towards Kucha's east.^[35]

Childless, married youthful women were called "chaucan" in Turki, and Forsyth mission participant Dr. Bellew said that "there was the chaucan always ready to contract an alliance for a long or short period with the merchant or traveller visiting the country or with anybody else".^[36][37] Henry Lansdell wrote in 1893 in his book Chinese Central Asia an account of temporary marriage practiced by a Turki Muslim woman, who married three different Chinese officers and a Muslim official.^[38] The station of prostitutes was accorded by society to these Muslim women who had sex with Chinese men.^[39] Chaucan was spelled by Robert Barkley Shaw as châukan (چاوكان) or chokan (چوكان).^[40]

Turkic Muslims in different areas of Xinjiang held derogatory views of each other such as claiming that Chinese men were welcomed by the loose Yamçi girls.^[41]

Intermarriage and patronage of prostitutes were among the forms of interaction between the Turki in Xinjiang and visiting Chinese merchants.^[42]

In Kashgar in 1933 the Chinese kept concubines and spouses who were Turkic women.^[43]

Le Coq reported that in his time sometimes Turkis distrusted Tungans (Hui Muslims) more than Han Chinese, so that a Tungan would never be given a Turki woman in marriage by her father, while a (Han) Chinese men could be given a Turki woman in marriage by her father.^[44]

Many of the young Kashgari women were most attractive in appearance, and some of the little girls quite lovely, their plaits of long hair falling from under a jaunty little embroidered cap, their big dark eyes, flashing teeth and piquant olive faces reminding me of Italian or Spanish children. One most beautiful boy stands out in my memory. He was clad in a new shirt and trousers of flowered pink, his crimson velvet cap embroidered with gold, and as he smiled and salaamed to us I thought he looked like a fairy prince. The women wear their hair in two or five plaits much thickened and lengthened by the addition of yak's hair, but the children in several tiny plaits.

The peasants are fairly well off, as the soil is rich, the abundant water-supply free, and the taxation comparatively light. It was always interesting to meet them taking their live stock into market. Flocks of sheep with tiny lambs, black and white, pattered along the dusty road; here a goat followed its master like a dog, trotting behind the diminutive ass which the farmer bestrode; or boys, clad in the whity-brown native cloth, shouted incessantly at donkeys almost invisible under enormous loads of forage, or carried fowls and ducks in bunches head downwards, a sight that always made me long to come to the rescue of the luckless birds.

It was pleasant to see the women riding alone on horseback, managing their mounts to perfection. They formed a sharp contrast to their Persian sisters, who either sit behind their husbands or have their steeds led by the bridle; and instead of keeping silence in public, as is the rule for the shrouded women of Iran, these farmers' wives chaffered and haggled with the men in the bazar outside the city, transacting business with their veils thrown back.

Certainly the mullas do their best to keep the fair sex in their place, and are in the habit of beating those who show their faces in the Great Bazar. But I was told that poetic justice had lately been meted out to one of these upholders of the law of Islam, for by mistake he chastised a Kashgari woman married to a Chinaman, whereupon the irate husband set upon him with a big stick and castigated him soundly.^[45][46]

Almost every Chinaman in Yarkand, soldier or civilian, takes unto himself a temporary wife, dispensing entirely with the services of the clergy, as being superfluous, and most of the high officials also give way to the same amiable weakness, their mistresses being in almost all cases natives of Khotan, which city enjoys the unenviable distinction of supplying every large city in Turkestan with courtesans.

When a Chinaman is called back to his own home in China proper, or a Chinese soldier has served his time in Turkestan and has to return to his native city of Pekin or Shanghai, he either leaves his temporary wife behind to shift for herself, or he sells her to a friend. If he has a family he takes the boys with him~—if he can afford it—failing that, the sons are left alone and unprotected to fight the battle of life, While in the case of daughters, he sells them to one of his former companions for a trifling sum.

The natives, although all Mahammadans, have a strong predilection for the Chinese, and seem to like their manners and customs, and never seem to resent this behaviour to their womankind, their own manners, customs, and morals (?) being of the very loosest description.^[47][48]

That a Muslim should take in marriage one of alien faith is not objected to; it is rather deemed a meritorious act thus to bring an unbeliever to the true religion. The Muslim woman, on the other hand, must not be given in marriage to a non-Muslim; such a union is regarded as the most heinous of sins. In this matter, however, compromises are sometimes made with heaven: the marriage of a Turki princess with the emperor Ch'ien-lung has already been referred to; and, when the present writer passed through Minjol (a day's journey west of Kashgar) in 1902, a Chinese with a Turki wife (? concubine) was presented to him.^[49]

He procured me a Chinese interpreter, Fong Shi, a pleasant and agreeable young Chinaman, who wrote his mother-tongue with ease and spoke Jagatai Turki fluently, and—did not smoke opium. He left his wife and child behind him in Khotan, Liu Darin making himself answerable for their maintenance. But I also paid Fong Shi three months' salary in advance, and that money he gave to his wife. Whenever I could find leisure he was to give me lessons in Chinese, and we began at once, even before we left Khotan.^[50][51]..........

Thus the young Chinaman's proud dream of one day riding through the gates of Peking and beholding the palace (yamen) of his fabulously mighty emperor, as well as of perhaps securing, through my recommendation, a lucrative post, and finally, though by no means last in his estimation, of exchanging the Turki wife he had left behind in Khotan for a Chinese bride—this proud dream was pricked at the foot of Arka-tagh. Sadly and silently he stood alone in the desert, gazing after us, as we continued our way towards the far-distant goal of his youthful ambition.^[52][53]

Tanka Prostitution

Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew (1845–1917) and Katharine Caroline Bushnell (5 February 1856 January 26, 1946), who wrote extensively on the position of women in the British Empire, wrote about the Tanka inhabitants of Hong Kong and their position in the prostitution industry, catering towards foreign sailors. The Tanka did not marry with the Chinese, being descendants of the natives, they were restricted to the waterways. They supplied their women as prostitutes to British sailors and assisted the British in their military actions around Hong Kong^[54] The Tanka in Hong Kong were considered "outcasts" categorized low class.^[55]

Ordinary Chinese prostitutes were afraid of serving Westerners since they looked strange to them, while the Tanka prostitutes freely mingled with western men.^[56] The Tanka assisted the Europeans with supplies and providing them with prostitutes.^[57][58] Low class European men in Hong Kong easily formed relations with the Tanka prostitutes.^[59] The profession of prostitution among the Tanka women led to them being hated by the Chinese both because they had sex with westerners and them being racially Tanka.^[60]

The Tanka prostitutes were considered to be "low class", greedy for money, arrogant, and treating clients with a bad attitude, they were known for punching their clients or mocking them by calling them names.^[61] Though the Tanka prostitutes were considered low class, their brothels were still remarkably well kept and tidy.^[62] A famous fictional story which was written in the 1800s depicted western items decorating the rooms of Tanka prostitutes.^[63]

The stereotype among most Chinese in Canton that all Tanka women were prostitutes was common, leading the government during the Republican era to accidentally inflate the number of prostitutes when counting, due to all Tanka women being included.^[64][65] The Tanka women were viewed as such that their prostitution activities were considered part of the normal bustle of a commercial trading city.^[66] Sometimes the lowly regarded Tanka prostitutes managed to elevate themselves into higher forms of prostitution.^[67][68]

Tanka women were ostracized from the Cantonese community, and were nicknamed "salt water girls " (ham shui mui in Cantonese) for their services as prostitutes to foreigners in Hong Kong.^[69][70]

Tanka women who worked as prostitutes for foreigners also commonly kept a "nursery" Tanka girls specifically for exporting them for prostitution work to overseas Chinese communities such as in Australia or America, or to serve as a Chinese or foreigner's concubine.^[71]

A report called "Correspondence respecting the alleged existence of Chinese slavery in Hong Kong: presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty" was presented to the English Parliament in 1882 concerning the existene of slavery in Hong Kong, of which many were Tanka girls serving as prostitutes or mistresses to westerners.^[72]

By 1930 there were about 8000 White Russian prostitutes in Shanghai^[73]

Prostitution during the Maoist era

Following the Communist Party of China's victory in 1949, local government authorities were charged with the task of eliminating prostitution. One month after the Communist takeover of Beijing on 3 February 1949, the new municipal government under Ye Jianying announced a policy to control the city's many brothels. On 21 November, all 224 of Beijing's establishments were shut down; 1286 prostitutes and 434 owners, procurers, and pimps were arrested in the space of 12 hours by an estimated 2400 cadres.^[74] Not surprisingly, the Beijing campaign has been much celebrated in historical accounts.

Due to the enormity of social issues that had to be addressed, and the limited budgets and human resources of local governments, most cities adopted the slower approach of first controlling and then prohibiting brothel-prostitution.^[75] This method was used in Tianjin, Shanghai and Wuhan.^[76][77] Typically it involved a system of governmental administration which controlled brothel activities and discouraged male patrons. The combined effect of such measures was to gradually reduce the number of brothels in each city until the point where a "Beijing-style" closure of the remaining brothels was deemed feasible and reeducation could begin. Reeducation programs were undertaken on the largest scale in Shanghai, where the number of sex workers had grown to 100,000 following the Second Sino-Japanese War.

By the early 1960s, such measures had basically wiped out visible forms of prostitution from mainland China. According to the People's Republic of China (PRC) government, venereal diseases were almost completely eliminated from the mainland contemporaneously with the control of prostitution. To mark this victory, all 29 venereal disease research institutes were closed in 1964.

In accordance with Marxist theory, women who sold sex were viewed as being forced into prostitution in order to survive. The eradication of prostitution was thus vaunted as one of the major accomplishments of the Communist government and evidence of the primacy of Chinese Marxism.^[78][79] Prostitution did not exist as a serious object of concern in China for a period of nearly three decades. Recent studies have demonstrated, however, that the disappearance of prostitution under the Maoist regime was far from complete.^[80][81] Pan Suiming, one of China's leading experts on prostitution, argues that "invisible" prostitution — in the form of women providing sexual services to cadres in exchange for certain privileges — became a distinctive feature of Maoist China, particularly towards the end of the Cultural Revolution.^[82]

Prostitution after 1978

Prostitution-related arrests during police campaigns (1983–1999)
year	prostitution-related arrests
1983	46,534
1989–90	243,183
1996–7	approx. 250,000
1998	189,972
1999	216,660

The resurgence of prostitution in mainland China has coincided with the introduction of Deng Xiaoping's liberalisation of Chinese economic policy in 1978. According to the incomplete statistics composed on the basis of nationwide crackdowns, the rate of prostitution in China has been rising every year since 1982.^[83] Between 1989 and 1990, 243,183 people were apprehended for prostitution-related activities.^[84] Zhang Ping estimates that such police figures only account for around 25–30 percent of the total number of people who are actually involved.^[85] Prostitution is an increasingly large part of the Chinese economy, employing perhaps 10 million people, with an annual level of consumption of possibly 1 trillion RMB.^[86] Following a 2000 police campaign, Chinese economist Yang Fan estimated that the Chinese GDP slumped by 1%, as a result of decreased spending by newly unemployed female prostitutes.^[86]

The revival of prostitution was initially associated with China's eastern, coastal cities, but since the early 1990s at least, local media have reported on prostitution scandals in the economic hinterlands, incorporating such remote and underdeveloped regions as Yunnan,^[87] Guizhou, and Tibet.^[88] In the 1980s, the typical seller of sex was a poorly educated, young female rural migrant from populous, relatively remote provinces such as Sichuan and Hunan. Over the past decade, there has been a recognition that the majority of women who enter prostitution do so of their own accord.^[89][90] The potential benefits of prostitution as an alternative form of employment include greater disposable income, access to upwardly mobile social circles and lifestyle options. The state-controlled media have focused attention on urban residents engaging in prostitution, especially university-educated women.^[91] There also seems to be a growing acceptance of prostitution. In a 1997 study, 46.8% of undergraduates in Beijing admitted to having considered receiving prostitution services.^[92] On the demand side, prostitution has been associated with the gender imbalances brought about by the one-child policy.^[93]

Prostitution is often directly linked to low-level government corruption. Many local officials believe that encouraging prostitution in recreational business operations will bring economic benefits by developing the tourism and hospitality industries and generating a significant source of tax revenue.^[94] On occasion, police have been implicated in the running of high grade hotels where prostitution activities occur, or accepting bribes and demanding sexual favours to ignore the existence of prostitution activities.^[95] Government corruption is also involved in a more indirect form — the widespread abuse of public funds to finance consumption of sex services. Pan Suiming contends that China has a specific type of prostitution that entails a bargain between those who use their power and authority in government to obtain sex and those who use sex to obtain privileges.^[96]

Apart from incidences of violence directly associated with prostitution, an increasing number of women who sell sex have been physically assaulted, and even murdered, in the course of attempts to steal their money and property.^[97] There have also been a growing number of criminal acts, especially incidences of theft and fraud directed at men who buy sex, as well as bribery of public servants.^[98] Offenders often capitalise on the unwillingness of participants in the prostitution transaction to report such activities. Organised crime rings are increasingly trafficking women into and out of China for the sex trade, sometimes forcibly and after multiple acts of rape.^{[99][100][101]} Mainland China also has a growing number of "heroin hookers", whose drug addictions are often connected to international and domestic crime rackets.^[102]

Sexually transmitted diseases also made a resurgence around the same time as prostitution, and have been directly linked to prostitution. There are fears that prostitution may become the main route of HIV transmission as it has in developing countries such as Thailand and India.^[103] Some regions have introduced a policy of 100% condom use, inspired by a similar measure in Thailand. Other interventions have been introduced recently at some sites, including STI services, peer education and voluntary counselling and testing for HIV.^[104][105]

Foreign prostitutes in China

North Korean prostitutes in China

North Korean women are increasingly falling victim to sex exploitation in China attempting to escape poverty and harsh conditions in their homeland. About 10,000 women (The Washington Post's Carol Douglas, however, claimed that the number was as high as 100,000^[106]) are reported to have escaped from North Korea to China; according to human rights groups, many of them are forced into sexual slavery..

According to a Ji Sun Jeong of A Woman's Voice International, "60 to 70% of North Korean defectors to China are women, and 70 to 80% of whom are victims of human trafficking."^[107] Violent abuse starts in apartments near the border, from where the women are then moved to cities further away to work as sex slaves. When Chinese authorities arrest these North Korean sex slaves, they repatriate them. North Korean authorities keep such repatriates in penal labour colonies (and/or execute them), execute any Chinese-fathered babies of theirs "to protect North Korean pure blood" and force abortions on all pregnant repatriates not executed.^[107]

South Korean prostitutes in China

South Korean college girls have been sent by brokers to work as prostitutes in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia due to the popularity of the "Korean wave".^[108]

A massive ring of South Korean prostitutes serving Chinese men was busted in Macau in 2015.^{[109][110][111][112]}

Some Korean women wear kiminos while working as prostitutes in Macau.^{[113][114][115][116][117][118][119]}

Japanese prostitutes in China

In Macau many Japanese porn actresses work as prostitutes and their clients are rich Chinese men.^{[120][121][122]}

Mongolian prostitutes in China

Mongolian women work as prostitutes in bars in Beijing,^[123][124] such as Maggie's.^{[125][126][127][128][129][130][131][132][133][134]}

European prostitutes in China

In China, Eastern Europeans and Russians make up most of the white prostitutes.^[135]

Bars in major Chinese cities offer blonde, blue-eyed Russian "hostesses".^[136]

During the 19th century^[137] and in contemporary times, Portuguese prostitutes have operated in Macau.^[138]

Some Chinese triad members from Macau married Portuguese prostitutes before China took it back from Portugal, providing them with access to Portuguese citizenship.^[139]

By 1930 there were about 8000 White Russian prostitutes in Shanghai.^[73]

Today, many European prostitutes in China market themselves as escorts to attract the attention of visiting businessmen and richer Chinese clients. They may work independently or through an escort agency and advertise their services through the internet. ^[140]

In Shanghai many Russian women work as prostitutes.^[141]

In Harbin there are Russian prostitutes and African students patronize them.^[142]

Vietnamese prostitutes in China

China is a recipient of Vietnamese prostitutes.^{[143][144][145][146]}

Many Vietnamese women travel from Lao Cai in Vietnam to Hekou County in China to work in brothels. They provide sex mainly to Chinese men.^[147]

Vietnamese women working as prostitutes in China have been trafficked from Vietnam through various means at the Guangxi border.^[148] Ha Giang province is a conduit for women being trafficked to become prostitutes in China.^[149] Chinese police sent 11 Vietnamese prostitutes working in Guangxi back to Vietnam in 2012.^[150]

On the Chinese border with Vietnam, in the Chinese town of Po-chai, a "Vietnamese girl market" made out of Vietnamese prostitutes offers sex to Chinese men exclusively and refuses service to Vietnamese men.^[151][152]

African prostitutes in China

Every year, thousands of women from Kenya, Rwanda or Uganda are ending up in the brothels of China, Indonesia and Malaysia.^[153]

Prostitution in Hong Kong and Macau

Hong Kong and Macau are special administrative regions of China and subject to different laws: prostitution in Hong Kong is legal, as is prostitution in Macau. This has led to a higher incidence of prostitution in these regions than in mainland China. Women travel from mainland China to Hong Kong and Macau in order to engage in the trade. There are also allegations of women being trafficked for the purpose. The trafficked women are said to come from mainland China, Mongolia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and South Africa.^[154][155]

Types and venues

Chinese police categorise prostitution practices according to a descending hierarchy of seven tiers, though this typology does not exhaust the forms of practices that exist.^[156] These tiers highlight the heterogeneous nature of prostitution and prostitutes. While they are all classified as prostitutes, the services they offer can be very different. Within some tiers, for example, there is still some revulsion to the acts of anal sex and oral sex. In parallel with the wide range of backgrounds for prostitutes, male buyers of sex also come from a wide range of occupational backgrounds. According to the local police, in China there are seven categories of prostitutes:^[157]

First tier - baoernai (包二奶)

Women who act as the "second wives" of men with money and influential positions, including government officials and entrepreneurs from the mainland, as well as overseas businessmen. This practice is defined as prostitution on the grounds that women in question actively solicit men who can provide them with fixed-term accommodation and a regular allowance. Women who engage in these acts will sometimes co-habit with their "clients" and may even have ambitions to become a real wife. Illegal online "College Concubine Agencies" have appeared, charging a fee to put men in contact with female university students who wish to become mistresses.^[158]

Second tier - baopo (包婆 "packaged wife")

Women who accompany high class clients for a fixed duration of time, for example, during the course of a business trip, and receive a set payment for doing so.

The first and second tiers have become the focus of heated public debate because they are explicitly linked to government corruption. Many domestic commentators contend that these practices constitute a concrete expression of "bourgeois rights".^[159] The All-China Women's Federation, as one of the major vehicles of feminism in the PRC, as well as women's groups in Hong Kong and Taiwan, have been actively involved in efforts to eradicate this form of "concubinage" as practices that violate the emotional and economic surety of the marriage contract.^[160]

Third tier - santing (三厅 "three halls")

Women who perform sexual acts with men in karaoke/dance venues, bars, restaurants, teahouses and other venues and who receive financial recompense in the form of tips from the individual men they accompany, as well as from a share of the profits generated by informal service charges on the use of facilities and the consumption of food and beverages. A common euphemism for such hostesses is sanpei xiaojie (三陪小姐: "ladies of the three accompaniments"). In theory, the "three accompaniments" are chatting, drinking and dancing with their clients. In practice, the "three accompaniments" more often refers to dancing with, drinking with, and being publicly groped by their clients. These women often begin by allowing their clients to fondle or intimately caress their bodies, then if the client is eager, will engage in sexual intercourse.

Fourth tier - "doorbell girls" (叮咚小姐 "dingdong ladies")

Women who solicit potential buyers of sex by phoning rooms in a given hotel.

Fifth tier - falangmei (发廊妹 "hairdressing salon sisters")

Women who work in places that offer commercial sexual services under the guise of massage or health and beauty treatments; for instance, in health and fitness centres, beauty parlours, barber shops, bathhouses and saunas. Common activities in these premises are masturbation or oral sex.

Sixth tier - jienü (街女 "street girls")

Women who solicit male buyers of sex on the streets.

Seventh tier - xiagongpeng (下工棚 "down the work shack")

Women who sell sex to the transient labour force of male workers from the rural countryside.

The lowest two tiers are characterised by a more straightforward exchange of sex for financial or material recompense. They are neither explicitly linked to government corruption, nor directly mediated through China's new commercial recreational business sector. Women who sell sex in the lowest two tiers usually do so in return for small sums of money, food and shelter.

Legal responses

The PRC rejects the argument that prostitution is an unremarkable transaction between consenting individuals and that prohibition laws constitute a violation of civil liberties. Overall, the PRC's legal response to prostitution is to penalise third party organisers of prostitution. Participants in the prostitution transaction are still usually penalised according to the Chinese system of administrative sanctions, rather than through the criminal code.

Prostitution law

Prostitution law
1987 Security administration punishment regulations (中华人民共和国治安管理处罚条例). 1991 Decision on Strictly Forbidding the Selling and Buying of Sex (严禁卖淫嫖娼的决定). 1991 Decision on the Severe Punishment of Criminals Who Abduct and Traffic in or Kidnap Women and Children (严惩拐卖、绑架妇女、儿童的犯罪分子的决定). 1992 Law on Protecting the Rights and Interests of Women (妇女权益保障法). 1997 revision of Criminal Law of the PRC (中华人民共和国刑法). 1999 "Regulations concerning the management of public places of entertainment" (娱乐场所管理条例).

Until the 1980s, the subject of prostitution was not viewed as a major concern for the National People's Congress. The PRC's first criminal code, the Criminal Law and the Criminal Procedure Law of 1979 made no explicit reference to the activities of prostitutes and prostitute clients.^[161] Legal control of prostitution was effected on the basis of provincial rulings and localised policing initiatives until the introduction of the "Security administration punishment regulations" in 1987. The Regulations makes it an offence to "sell sex" (卖淫) and to "have illicit relations with a prostitute" (嫖宿暗娼).^[162]

Prostitution only became a distinct object of statutory classification in the early 1990s. Responding to requests from the Ministry of Public Security and the All-China Women's Federation, the National People's Congress passed legislation that significantly expanded the range and scope of prostitution controls: the 1991 Decision on Strictly Forbidding the Selling and Buying of Sex and the 1991 Decision on the Severe Punishment of Criminals Who Abduct and Traffic in or Kidnap Women and Children.^[163] Adding symbolic weight to these enhanced law enforcement controls was the 1992 Law on Protecting the Rights and Interests of Women, which defines prostitution as a social practice that abrogates the inherent rights of women to personhood.^[164]

The PRC's revised Criminal Law of 1997 retains its abolitionist focus in that it is primarily concerned with criminalising third-party involvement in prostitution. For the first time the death penalty may be used, but only in exceptional cases of organising prostitution activities, involving additional circumstances such as repeated offences, rape, causing serious bodily injury, etc.^[165][166] The activities of first-party participants continue to be regulated in practice according to administrative law, with the exceptions of anyone who sells or buys prostitutional sex in the full knowledge that they are infected with an STD; and anyone who has prostitutional sex with a child under 14 years of age.^[167] Since 2003, male homosexual prostitution has also been prosecuted under the law.^[168]

The 1997 criminal code codified provisions in the 1991 Decision, establishing a system of controls over social place, specifically places of leisure and entertainment.^[169] The ultimate goal is to stop managers and workers within the predominantly male-run and male-patronised hospitality and service industry from profiting from and/or encouraging the prostitution of others. Government intervention in commercial recreation has found concrete expression in the form of the 1999 "Regulations concerning the management of public places of entertainment". The provisions proscribe a range of commercial practices that characterise the activities of female "hostesses".^[170] These laws have been further reinforced via the introduction of localised licensing measures that bear directly on the interior spatial organisation of recreational venues.

Party disciplinary measures

As a result of strong calls to curb official corruption, during the mid to late 1990s, a whole host of regulations were also introduced to ban government employees both from running recreational venues and from protecting illegal business operations. The 1997 Communist Party Discipline Regulations, for example, contain specific provisions to the effect that party members will be stripped of their posts for using their position and/or public funds to keep a "second wife", a "hired wife", and to buy sexual services.^[171] These measures are being policed via the practice established in 1998 of auditing government officials, and thereby combining the forces of the CPC's disciplinary committees with those of the State Auditing Administration. Following the introduction of these measures, the Chinese media has publicised numerous cases of government officials being convicted and disciplined for abusing their positions for prostitution.^[172]

Policing

Despite the position of the law, prostitutes are often treated as quasi-criminals by the Ministry of Public Security. Chinese police conduct regular patrols of public spaces, often with the support of mass-line organisations, using a strong presence as a deterrence against prostitution. Because lower tier prostitutes work the streets, they are more likely to be apprehended. Arrests are also more likely to be female sellers of sex than male buyers of sex. The overwhelming majority of men and women who are apprehended are released with a caution and fine.^[173]

In response, sellers and buyers of sex have adopted a wide range of tactics designed to avoid apprehension. The spatial mobility which is afforded by modern communications systems, such as mobile phones and pagers, and by modern forms of transportation, such as taxis and private cars, has severely reduced the ability of police to determine exactly who is engaged in acts of solicitation.^[174] Prostitutes have also begun using the internet, in particular instant messaging software such as QQ, to attract customers.^[175] In 2004, PlayChina, an online prostitution referral service, was shut down by police.

In tandem with the long-term task of developing preventative policing, the much more visible form of policing have been periodic police-led campaigns. Anti-prostitution campaigns have been accompanied by nationwide "media blitzes" to publicise the PRC's laws and regulations. This is typically followed by the announcement of arrest statistics, and then by sober official statements suggesting that the struggle to eliminate prostitution will be a long one. The use of campaigns has been criticised for their reliance on an outdated "ideological" construction and an equally outmoded campaign formula of the 1950s.^[176]

The primary target of the PRC's prostitution controls throughout the 1990s has been China's burgeoning hospitality and entertainment industry. These culminated in the "strike hard" campaigns of late 1999 and 2000. Whilst such campaigns may have failed to eradicate prostitution in toto, there is some evidence that regulation of China's recreational venues has helped to create a legitimate female service worker with the right to refuse to engage in practices repugnant to the "valid labour contract", as well as the right to be free from sexual harassment in the workplace.^[177]

Chinese police have, however, proven unable to effectively police higher tier prostitution practices. The nature of concubinage and second wife practices makes it more suited as a target of social action campaigns rather than conventional police action. Because of social changes, for example, Chinese police are now professionally constrained not to intrude on people's personal relationships in an overt or coercive manner.^[178] Police forces around China also differ as to how they approach the subject. In some areas, "massage parlours" on main streets are known full well to be brothels, but are generally left to function without hindrance, barring occasional raids.

The question of legalisation

The illegal activities and problems associated with prostitution had led some to believe that there would be benefits if prostitution was legalized.

A number of international NGOs and human rights organisations have criticised the PRC government for failing to comply with the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, accusing PRC of penalising and abusing lower tier prostitutes, many of whom are victims of human trafficking, while exonerating men who buy sex, and ignoring the ongoing problems of governmental complicity and involvement in the sex trade industry.^[179] The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women reads: Art. 6: States Parties shall take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women. However, it does not advocate a system of legal and regulated prostitution.^[180] There has, though, been some calls for legalization; a minor rally for this caused was held in 2010 organized by sex worker activist Ye Haiyan, who was arrested by police for her role in organizing the protests.^[181]

Central guidelines laid down by the CPC do not permit the public advocacy of the legalisation of prostitution. Arguments concerning legalisation are not absent, however, from mainland China. On the contrary, some commentators contend that legally recognising the sex industry, in conjunction with further economic development, will ultimately reduce the number of women in prostitution.^[182] Domestic commentators have also been highly critical of the PRC's prostitution controls, with a consistent Marxist-informed focus of complaint being the gender-biased and discriminatory nature of such controls, as well as human rights abuses.^[183] Some commentators in China and overseas contend that the PRC's policy of banning prostitution is problematic because it hinders the task of developing measures to prevent the spread of HIV.^[184]

While prostitution controls have been relaxed at a local level, there is no impetus for legalisation at the central government level. Importantly, legalisation does not have much public support.^[185] Given the underdeveloped nature of the Chinese economy and legal system, there is an argument that legalisation would further complicate the already difficult task of establishing the legal responsibility for third-party involvement in forced prostitution and the traffic in women.^[186] Surveys conducted in China suggest that clandestine forms of prostitution will continue to proliferate alongside the establishment of legal prostitution businesses, because of social sanctions against working or patronising a red-light district.^[187] Problems associated with female employment also limit the effectiveness of legalisation. These include the lack of independent trade unions, and limited access of individuals to civil redress with regard to occupational health and safety issues.^[188]

HIV/AIDS

According to UNAIDS, 0.5% of Chinese sex workers are infected with HIV.^[189] One study reported that 5% of low-cost sex workers were infected.^[190] In one part of Yunnan province, the infection rate is estimated to be as high as 7%. The Chinese government has initiated programs to educate sex workers in HIV/AIDS prevention.^[189]

Rising HIV/AIDS rates among Chinese's elderly has been partially attributed to the use of sex workers.^[190]

Prostitution in the media

The spread of prostitution practices has introduced a large quantity of slang to the popular vocabulary. Prostitution is a popular subject in the media, especially on the internet. Typically news of police raids, court cases or family tragedies related to prostitution are published in a sensationalised form. A good example is news of an orgy between 400 Japanese clients and 500 Chinese prostitutes in 2003, which partially because of anti-Japanese sentiment, was widely publicised and met with considerable outrage.^[191] Another highly publicised case was that of Alex Ho Wai-to, then a Democratic Party candidate for the Legislative Council of Hong Kong, who was given a six-month re-education through labor sentence for hiring a prostitute.^[192]

Prostitution has emerged as a subject of art in recent years, particularly in Chinese cinema. Li Shaohong's 1995 film Blush begins in 1949 with the rounding up of prostitutes in Shanghai for "reeducation", and proceeds to tell the story of a love triangle between two prostitutes and one of their former clients. One of the prostitutes, Xiaoe, attempts to hang herself in reeducation. When asked to explain the reason, she says she was born in the brothel and enjoyed her lifestyle there - thereby challenging the government-sanctioned perspective of prostitution. The 1998 film Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl was a dramatic portrayal of "invisible" prostitution in the rural China during the Maoist era.

The 2001 independent film Seafood, by Zhu Wen, was an even more frank depiction of prostitution, this time of the complicated relationship between prostitution and law enforcement. In the film, a Beijing prostitute goes to a seaside resort to commit suicide. Her attempt is intervened by a police officer who tries to redeem her, but also inflicts upon her many instances of sexual assault. Both films, whilst being critically acclaimed abroad, performed poorly in mainland China, only partially due to government restrictions on distribution. The depiction of prostitution in fiction, by comparison, has fared slightly better. The most notable author on the subject is the young writer Jiu Dan, whose portrayal of Chinese prostitutes in Singapore in her novel Wuya, was extremely controversial.^[193]

See also

• Crime in the People's Republic of China
• Corruption in China

Notes and references

Further reading

• Aizibing: shehui, lunli he falü wenti zhuanjia yantaohui (艾滋病：社会、伦理和法律问题专家研讨会: "Report of the Expert Workshop on HIV and Prostitution: Social, Ethical and Legal Issues"), Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 29–31 October.
• Gil, V.E. and Anderson, A.F. (1998) "State-sanctioned aggression and the control of prostitution in the People's Republic of China: a review", Aggression and Violent Behaviour, 3: 129-42.
• Hershatter, G., Dangerous Pleasures: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press).
• Jeffreys, E., China, Sex and Prostitution, (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004).
• Ruan, F. (1991) Sex in China: Studies in Sexology in Chinese Culture, New York: Plenum Press.
• Shan Guangnai, Zhongguo changji - guoqu he xianzai (中国娼妓过去和现在: "Chinese Prostitution - Past and Present") (Beijing: Falü chubanshe, 1995).

External links

• All-China Women's Federation, Excerpts from the Criminal Law of the PRC. See in particular articles 358–362.
• Jeffreys, E., A Matter of Choice: Feminist Prostitution Debates and the Example of China.
• Xin Ren, Prostitution and Employment Opportunities for Women under China's Economic Reform.
• Pan Suiming, 中国红灯区纪实 ("A true record of China's red-light districts") A sociological study of three prostitution centres. (in Chinese)
• Gifford, R., On the Road in China: Prostitution, Religion Rise, NPR.
• Child exploitation not new to stricken region
• Illegal Prostitution Occurring in Massage Parlors and Bathhouses