Legal issues
A handwritten sign advertising the prices for various nationalities of women outside a brothel on Soy Street in KowloonProstitution in Hong Kong is legal, but subject to various restrictions, mainly intended to keep it away from the public eye.[4] These restrictions are manifested in the form of prohibiting a whole host of activities surrounding prostitution, including soliciting and advertising for sex, working as pimps, running brothels and organized prostitution. For instance, by the Hong Kong legal code Chapter 200 Section 147, any person who "solicits for any immoral purpose" in a public place may receive a maximum penalty of HK$ 10,000 and six months' imprisonment. In practice, a woman on the street in certain areas well-known for streetwalkers such as Sham Shui Po might well be arrested even if seen smiling at a male passerby.[4] Advertisement of sex services, including signboards, illuminated signs and posters, is also prohibited, and an offence may result in imprisonment for 12 months.[14]
Organized prostitution, in the form of directing "over another person for the purpose of... that person's prostitution", is forbidden by Section 130, and an offence may result in 14 years of imprisonment.[15] Sections 131 and 137, which are aimed at pimps, stipulate a jail sentence of seven years as the maximum penalty for "procuring another person to become a prostitute" and "living on earnings of prostitution of others".[16] Under Hong Kong law, it is also illegal to organize arrangement of sex deals for more than one woman; violators are subject to a HK$20,000 fine and seven years' imprisonment.[8] Therefore, if two women are found serving customers in the same apartment, it is an illegal brothel. This gives rise to the so-called "one-woman brothel" where one woman receives customers in her apartment, which is restricted by Section 141, which prohibits young persons to engage in prostitution.[17] This is the most common form of legal prostitution in Hong Kong.[9]
Strategies to avoid the prohibition on brothels
Brothels are illegal, prostitution in private however is legal. To avoid this prohibition, in practice much of the prostitution is controlled by triad societies or as informal additions to otherwise nonsexual services such as massage parlors, bars and karaoke establishments. Among the many forms of prostitution common in Hong Kong are "one for one" girls. To avoid the operation of an illegal brothel, triads will rent tiny apartments and allow girls to "sublet" them so they appear to be operating out of their own homes[citation needed]. The triads then advertise the girls' services on web sites or in local publications[citation needed]. Another avoidance strategy is to operate a karaoke establishment and provide girls as entertainment or companionship only; the girls then take customers to an hourly hotel in the same building and pay for the room separately. Informal, individual prostitution (mostly of Filipinas, Indonesians, Thais, and sometimes women from Latin America and the former Soviet Union) is almost always available at discos or hotel bars, especially in the Tsim Sha Tsui and Wan Chai districts (the latter famous as the setting for The World of Suzie Wong. Occasionally the police raid the triad-run prostitution setups, but usually the only arrests made are for immigration violations. Women frequently enter Hong Kong from mainland China for prostitution services. However, this travel is not forcible; most women working as prostitutes in Hong Kong are of age and are doing so voluntarily[citation needed].
To read more see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Hong_Kong
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Last edited by Weelock at 27-5-2010 13:36 ]
