Share via Email Suspected prostitutes and their customers squat on the floor at a Dongguan hotel during a crackdown. Internet users and human rights groups have criticised authorities for shaming and intimidating female sex workers rather than offering them help. The UN estimates that four to six million women work in the country's sex industry nationwide, many of them in brothels thinly disguised as hair salons, massage parlours and karaoke bars. In one segment, a reporter enters a room divided by one-way glass; on the other side, two scantily-clad women dance provocatively to a Lady Gaga song.
A venue employee identifies them by their numbers, prices, and hometowns. Later, the reporter calls the police to report prostitution , but none show up. According to state media , the city responded to the broadcast by dispatching 6, police officers in a raid. They arrested 67 people and closed 12 entertainment venues. Pictures posted online showed lines of men and women kneeling on the floor in the middle of a hotel lobby, their heads down and their hands cuffed, surrounded by scores of uniformed police.
According to the state-run China Daily newspaper, Guangdong authorities will soon launch a three-month, province-wide crackdown on prostitution. Eight officers have already been suspended. A spokesman at the Dongguan public security bureau refused to confirm the report or comment on the current condition of the detained sex workers. Many users debated whether China should legalise prostitution. Some speculated that the report and crackdown were the product of an internal power struggle.
The crackdown is nothing but a show. Because the fines go directly into public security coffers, Bequelin said, police often force detained sex workers into confessing. Repeated crackdowns usually force sex workers to operate more clandestinely, making them more vulnerable to abuse.
