Smuggled
plea bares dark world of child prostitutes
By PAUL MOONEY in Taipei
“I have been locked up for more than three months now and I can’t stand
it anymore,” wrote 16-year-old prostitute Hsiao Hui in a pleading
letter smuggled out of a Taipei brothel by a sympathetic patron.
“They beat me and forced me to receive customers, and restricted my
freedom. I used to be a pure girl, but because my father owed money I
was brought here. Please show pity on me. Please rescue me.”
Hsiao Hui was fortunate. Although the brothel owner moved her from
place to place after her story was widely reported in the media, Taipei
police were able to trace her whereabouts and rescue the girl.
According to a survey conducted by the Taipei city department of social
welfare, 200,000 other children in the sex industry are not so lucky.
Police statistics indicate that they have rescued no more than 1,000
child prostitutes over the past three years.
Another survey shows that 67 percent of prostitutes started before they
were 16 and 29 percent before the age of 13. Social workers say that
children as young as 9 years old are involved.
The girls are confined like slaves, with no protection from abusive
brother owners and customers. They live in tiny dark rooms with poor
ventilation, where they may receive anywhere from 10 to 50 customers a
day.
Their bodies are violated in other ways as well. Since many are
physically immature and small, they are injected with hormones to
induce maturity.
The children are given little protection against sexual diseases or
AIDS. Eight out of 10 girls recently rescued and sent to the Women’s
Rescue Foundation, an organization established to help prostitutes, had
some form of sexual disease.
Many come from the island’s impoverished aborigine community, which has
been left behind by the island’s economic miracle. Some 40 percent of
these girls have been sold into prostitution by their families.
“If disaster comes to a family, if someone is sick or needs an
operation, apparently the easiest way to get money is to sell the
daughter,” says Liao Pi-Ying, director of the Rainbow Project, a
Presbyterian organization that provides assistance to aborigine youth.
Often, the contact person is a prominent village figure, such as an
elected official, a teacher, or even a policeman’s wife, all of whom
have a civic status that can protect them should their activities be
found out.
These middlemen receive up to 25 percent of the US$9,000 generally paid
for a girl, a huge sum in a country with a yearly per capita income of
US$8,000.
While many girls may contemplate running away, escape is almost
impossible. The girls are under the watchful eye of “bodyguards” 24
hours a day, even when they go to the doctor’s office for a check-up.
For those lucky enough to escape or be arrested, there are only two
rehabilitation centers on the island.
The girls spend six months in the rehabilitation houses, but once the
confinement period is over there are only two places for them to go:
back home, where they may not be welcome, or back to the brothel. It is
estimated that 95 percent of the girls who have been in the centers
return to prostitution.
“In many cases forced participation eventually becomes voluntary,” says
Angie Galman, an American missionary who has been working with
prostitutes for the past eight years.
Most young prostitutes are afraid to bring legal action against those
who have enslaved them for fear of subjecting their parents to
prosecution. In order to protect their parents the frightened girls
often admit to being voluntarily involved and are then treated as
juvenile delinquents.
Without formal accusations, suspects cannot be taken to court.
Furthermore, when someone is convicted the sentence is often just a
light fine or probation and so does not serve as a deterrent.
The owner of one brothel, who forced a 16-year-old girl to work for
three months and serve 3,000 customers before letting her leave,
received a 10 month jail sentence.
Social workers are frustrated by the lack of support from the
government and from society in general. They say that throughout
Chinese history girls from poor families have been forced into
prostitution and that Chinese society accepts this as normal.
Many people just refuse to believe that child and teenage prostitution
exists here.
