Zi Teng with migrant Chinese sex workers

Law related to migrant sex workers
There are two offense related to migrant sex work. Immigration offense: “Breach of a Condition of Stay”, i.e. all non-Hong Kong citizens are not allowed to work without a valid working visa; and “Soliciting for Immoral purpose”, i.e. any people who (1)initiate conversation with anybody, or using body language, expression or attire to signal availability to customer OR (2) mention the types of available sexual service and price, for example during conversation, would commit this offense. The latter, in particular, is mostly related to street-based sex workers.

Background of migrant sex worker
After the hand-over of Hong Kong to Mainland China, mainland resident can come to Hong Kong more easily through individual visit by using two-way permit. More mainland women come individually and work independently in Hong Kong. 80% of them come from relatively poor provinceslike Hunan, Hubei and Szechuan,while 20% come from otherprovinces like GuangdongGuangxi, Zhian Xi, Henan,Harbin. There are both womenfrom urban and rural areas, butthe number from rural areas,particularly from very poorregions, has been increasing recently. While some womencome from peasant family, with anannual household income of1000RMB (About USD110), some work for very low wage, say, 800RMB (USD100), which is a very common salary for Mainland manual workers. Urban women are often of secondary education level, but many rural women are of low education level. Some are even illiterate, which adversely affect their earning power. The increasing living standard and living costs in Mainland China has created huge financial burden for these women. The monthly income of common manual worker is basically not enough to cover the education fees and medical fees, let alone the annual income of the peasant family. The huge financial burden thus pushes these women to leave their hometown for other countries to earn “quick money”.

Characteristic of Mainland migrant sex workers’ life

A population of high mobility
Due to relatively low traveling cost and similar social and cultural background, Hong Kong is the first destination of most women coming from the provinces aforementioned. If they are arrested and sentenced, they cannot come to Hong Kong again in at least 2 years. They will then go to other countries/areas after being penalized. Even not being arrested in Hong Kong, they will also go to work in other countries/areas when the visa expired as they often cannot earn money within the 7-days issued by the Hong Kong Immigration Department. Migrant women seldom go home after their trip to Hong Kong, but keep migrating to other countries/areas such as Singapore, Malaysia, Macau, mainly because they have to continue to earn a living. Some of them will even go further to Canada, England and Australia for their living. They usually go back when they need to renew their visa, and on important occasion such as the Lunar Chinese New Year.

Access to the industry through relatives and close friends (“sisters”)
It is common for Mainland women to develop a special network with other hometown women, whom they call “sisters”. Apart from the reason of poverty, which pushes Mainland women to enter sex industry, they also enter the industry through the introduction of their “sisters ”. Most migrant women are well aware of what they do after leaving their hometown. “Sisters” usually have experiences of working overseas, they will then perform the role of peer mentor to those who are leaving China for the first time. However, some “sisters” are only interested in the money and cheat their hometown friends for huge agent fees. In this case, if the women do not master the information of the destination country and do not understand much about their particular “sisters”, they would easily fall prey to huge debt, or trafficking.

Working condition of migrant sex workers

Various types of working conditions
Mainland women work in different types of sex business in Hong Kong. Some women work as street-based sex workers. While they search for customers on the streets with service charge of $100-150 (US$12.5-18.5) each time, they rent a room in guesthouse for accommodation and work. They usually work independently that they enjoy the greatest autonomy (e.g. choose where to work, how long to work each day, take one day off for shopping) and bargaining power over customers and use of condoms. Street-based sex workers serve mainly the grass-root community and the most marginalized social groups.

Some women work in one-woman-apartment in Hong Kong, which is not illegal for local sex workers. Migrant sex workers, who work in one-woman apartment, have very little say on service charge. They have to share their income with the people who “assist” them at work. Some women work in the brothels. They are mainly recruited by the pimps in the Mainland China. As they are employed by the brothels, they enjoy less autonomy at work. The service charge is decided by the brothel boss at $350-500 (US$45-64) each time. The women cannot ask for more money, unless customers pay them tips. For the money they get from each transaction, they have to share with the boss and the pimp, in which they get 50%-70% of the total amount. Though they cannot choose customers and have fixed working hours, they can still enjoy their time after work.

Some women work in higher-class entertainment establishment such as nightclubs and karaoke. They also work as escort women in hotel, where they provide service for richer people for higher price. They also enjoy autonomy at work.

Some women work in the underground brothels/guesthouses, where there is the least autonomy. Women working there are often illegal immigrants, who enter Hong Kong illegally. Due to their illegal status, they cannot work independently and freely for the fear of being identified and arrested. Neither the pimps will let them go out of the brothel/guesthouse. Once they are identified by police, they will be jailed for at least1 year. The women usually have to stay in the flat for the whole day and stand by for 24hours for work. The pimps will find women clients, but the women basically cannot say no to work or customer. The pimps also have absolute say over price. They will take care of the women’s daily living, for instance, they will buy food or sanitary towels for the women, as the women cannot go out as freely as they want.

Frequent arbitrary arrest and police abuse
There are more frequent police raids throughout the past 5 years. There are two kinds of raid. One is the joint operation between the Immigration Department and the police force, another is the undercover operation, which is solely carried out by the police. For the former, police and immigrationdepartment will break into thebrothels and the places whereindependent sex workersaccommodate, and arrest thewomen. The women will thenbe deported to Shenzhen thenext day. The law enforcement departments will also takeactions when they receive thecomplaints from the politicians. Itis a common practice forpoliticians to collect votes by pressurizing police to take actions against migrant sex workers. At present, many brothels are closed down because of frequent operation. The closure of brothels does not mean the elimination of the business, but pushes the business to underground. The women become more invisible. They are more afraid to go out of the brothel or flat, even fear of seeking medical advice or other emergency service. To some extent, this explains why the number of migrant sex workers visiting our clinic drops.

For police undercover operation, they usually walk in the streets as most customers do and arrest the women. Police has formed special action unit in each police district, focus on the arrest of the street-based migrant workers. Police are supposed to collect adequate evidences before arresting the women for soliciting immoral purposes, but they often ignore the police operation rules and arrest the women even with no evidence. Arbitrary arrest and police abuse has been becoming more commn and serious. Women after arrest are then brought to the police stations. As Mainland women have no ideas about Hong Kong law and their own right, it is common for police to abuse their power and force the women to sign on the false statement. The women are often charged with “Breach of a Condition of Stay” and/or “Soliciting for immoral purpose”. The women generally face 4-months imprisonment. If the woman holds an invalid visa, they would face at least 1-year imprisonment.

Stressful working conditions and Low bargaining power
Mainland women often work and live in risk. Undoubtedly, one of the risks is the arbitrary arrest and frame-up by police. Because of the fear of arrest, they can only work few hours each day. They are even afraid to go out to have some normal activities like having lunch and do shopping.

Migrant sex workers have low bargaining power. Because of the fear of being identified and arrested, they cannot bargain much with the customers. Some have to accept unsafe sex to secure their income. This increases their vulnerability to STDs and HIV/AIDS. Their fear of being identified by police even exposes them to crimes and different kinds of violence such as robbery, physical assault and rape.

The difficulties during outreach:

Difficult to reach Mainland sex workers during outreach
Due to the unfavorable working environment and police abuse, migrant sex workers work more underground. This greatly affects our work, for example, we need to spend more effort to identify them, Even if we can identify them, they may deny they are sex workers, or tell us that they do nothing. Some even scold at us as they think that we are bad people. As long as we can hardly reach them, it is difficult to give them information like law, basic right, health, and self-protection skills.

Difficult to build up relationship with sex workers and other related parties
Based on our outreach experience, it is easier to contact the Mainland women if we build up relationship with the people around them such as middlemen, minders, “sisters”, and keepers. However, since they generally do not easily believe anyone in Hong Kong, we can hardly build up relationship with them. It also bars us from knowing migrant sex workers’ latest working situation and affects the development of corresponding services.

Jeijeijai stories

In general, on one hand, migrant sex workers have to deal with undesirable working conditions such as abuse and risks of getting infected. On the other hand, they face double discrimination. They have to cope with both physical and psychological pressure. The stories below from three migrant Chinese sex workers may give you better idea on the plights of migrant women.

Ah Ying
Ah Ying comes from Hunan. She used to be a housewife, with her husband a peasant. Two of them seldom earned more than a thousand yuan (US$125) each year. Ah Ying ‘s 9-year-old son has been suffering from Congenital Heart Disease. He needs to regularly take medicine or he suffers more from the disease. The medical fee is so huge that they can hardly afford even with their annual household income. Neither can they afford their son’s school fee, that the school has remitted their school fee and their relatives has loaned them money.

Ah Ying and her husband were heavily indebted for the sake of their son. The financial burden gradually escalated to the extent, of which they cannot afford even the very basic medicine. They had to terminate their son’s treatment for half a year. “The doctor did tell us that we should not terminate the treatment, but we really could not afford it. Our relatives are as poor as we are. They cannot help us much. I was desperate…” Because of the termination, the boy was in a critical situation. He had to undergo an operation, which costs 90,000 yuan (US$11250). Ah Ying only has primary school level. She could not find any job in the hometown. She thus had to leave the town to earn money with her body for the operation fee. “We don't have any money, and I can only do this for the boy's operation fee. Sometimes, I wish I were the one suffering the disease…” After she came to Hong Kong for three days, she was arbitrarily arrested by the policewhen she was buying some food. She was fooled by the police at the
police station to sign on the false statement, admitted that she worked as
a sex worker in Hong Kong. She was charged with breaching a
condition of stay, and wrongly jailed for two months.

Ah Fong
Ah Fong is from Hunan. Her husband is a drug addict andjobless. He often asks Fong for money for the drug. Her son hasbeen suffering from eye disease, which requires long-term careand treatment. Ah Fong is the sole breadwinner. She used to work as asaleswoman, but she only earned 500 yuan (US$62.5) each month. Hehusband was brought to the correctional center. “I have to take care of myparents, but I have such a husband, whom I can’t even satisfy with myincome. What do you think I can do?… ” Who can I ask for help if I don't do anything? Do you really think that I do this (sex work) willingly? For the sake of my boy, I have to do so even against my own will, regardless of the bitterness and hardship.”

Ah Fong goes back to her hometown only for two to three times a year. She was a street-based sex worker in Hong Kong. She charged around one hundred dollars (US$12.5) for each service. “It was not an easy and pleasant job. I was very anxious everyday, afraid of being arrested. I felt great pressure. This was indeed against my will. Sometimes I felt like crying…but I could not voice out my thoughts.” One day, Ah Fong was followed by an undercover agent. He requested Ah Fong for sexual service. She did not listen to him. Nevertheless, the agent still followed her to a building and arrested her. He forced her to sign the statement. Ah Fong denied the charge and her case was brought to the court a month later. But still her charge was established. She was wrongly jailed for three months.

Ah Ha
Ah Ha is only 18 years old. She is from Henan. She is the eldest. Below she has one brother and one sister. Her father was deceased. Her mother has to take care of her infant sister, so she cannot go to work. Ah Ha only has middle school level. She could only earn four hundred yuan (US$50) each month. She needs to take care of the family. She also wishes to earn money for her brother to go to university. Hence, she came to Hong Kong as a sex worker. “I would not do this (sex worker) if I had a choice. I also wish to go to university, but this is not possible, isn’t it? I am the eldest, so I have to take care of the family…all I can do is to think positively. ” After she came to Hong Kong, she found that Hong Kong was very different to what she imagined. Since police often raided and took arbitrary actions, she feared a lot even walking in the streets. “I was really afraid…The plain-cloth police take action everyday. I heard from my friend that police arrest everyone of us whenever they see us in the street. I will be put in jail if caught. This creates great pressure on me…If I am jailed, what will happen to my family…I was very worried.”

One day, Ah Ha was walking on a street with her friend. The undercover agent followed her. He kept asking her the price and service. Since she understood well that it should be the agent, who solicited, breaking the law, she did not listen to him. Her friend called us and we quickly sent a lawyer to her. Nonetheless, she was forced to sign the statement before the lawyer arrived, admitted that she came to work in Hong Kong as a sex worker. Eventually, she was charged with ‘breach of a condition of stay’ and ‘solicit for an immoral purpose’. Her charges were established, and she was jailed for two and a half months.

Service provided for migrant sex workers

Seeing the insufficient support and care for migrant Chinese sex workers in Hong Kong, Zi Teng started to provide service for this marginalized group in 1999. So far, we have developed the following:

Education and Legal support
In Hong Kong, it is very common for police misconduct and abusing power against sex workers. For instance, they beat women during investigation; they do not give women clothes or even food and drinks, they do not allow them to make telephone calls; they strip-search the women for 4 times at the same police station. Abuse of police power is particularly common among migrant sex workers from Mainland China. For example, they will try all their best to force to women to sign on the false statement. Some even ask the women to sign on a blank paper and fill anything they like in the blank paper to make one statement. Thus, it is one of our tasks to teach the women their basic rights, the current legal and judiciary systems, and the legal procedures in Hong Kong. The more they know, the more they can protect themselves.

24-hour hotline
When Mainland women are arrested and seek for help, we will ask the lawyer to the police station. It is important for the presence of a lawyer, she/he can provide the most effective legal advice for the women. To a great extent, the presence of the lawyer effectively makes the police to handle the investigation according to the police guidelines, restore the women to basic rights.

Information delivery
The master of information about destination countries/areas is important to migrant sex workers, who keep going to different countries. The more they know, the less probable they will be fooled or deceived. We thus work much on collecting information and deliver the information to migrant sex workers. We have been publishing and updating a booklet “Things to know before you go” for migrant workers since 2000. We aim to provide as much information about different destination countries/areas as possible, ranging from law and working conditions to emergency help for the migrant sex workers.

Outreach Clinic
Regarding occupational health, we cooperate with the Chinese University of Hong Kong and set up a clinic for both local and migrant sex workers. We provide free checkup including HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia Hepatitis B and Pap Smear. We have a full time nurse outreaching to sex workers. The clinic serves as an important medical support for migrant sex workers, particularly when Hong Kong government cancelled the free medical service to all non- Hong Kong citizens in 2003.

Community education about the Chinese sex workers’ situation
Due to the illegal status of migrant sex workers and the misunderstanding in migrant sex workers in society, migrant sex workers are often marginalized and denied. In order to let the public to understand migrant sex workers more, we use different cultural means to tell the public about mainland sex workers. For example, we published the “Two-way secrets: life stories of twelve sex workers from Mainland China”; which describes the life and working conditions in Hong Kong of 12 migrant women. We also invite migrant sex workers to deliver speech and talk at different education institutions, so as to let more people understand their stories.

Advocacy of migrant sex workers’ right and police abuse
Migrant sex workers are often denied of basic rights in Hong Kong. They should enjoy basic rights and be respected even they break the law. Hence, we try to arouse more attention on the issue from both the public and government officials through campaigns and lobbying. Particularly we would like to urge the concerned government departments to improve their policy and attitudes towards migrant sex workers. At the same time, we work with lawyers to provide legal assistances for arrested or detained migrant sex workers. Recently, we have set up a reserve fund to further defend migrant sex workers’ legal and human rights. We particularly hope that we can protect their rights in every court hearing. Recently, we organized two different events to arouse more attention on migrant sex workers from the public and service providers. One is an action on March 17, in which we protested against the frame-up police always do on Mainland visitors (regardless of their relation to the sex industry). The other is the migrant sex workers workshop meeting during April 30 to May 2.

Migrant Sex Workers Workshop Meeting
In order to develop our capacities and network to work better with migrant Chinese sex workers, we organized the Migrant Sex Workers Workshop Meeting during April 30 to May 2. We invited service providers and partners from Thailand, Canada, England, Australia, Japan, The Netherlands, Taiwan, China were invited to share with us their working experiences. Overall, we achieved fruitful outcomes at the workshop meeting, as we were able to strengthen our relationship with each participant. We also promised to do referral service in case migrant sex workers seek help in any of the above countries/areas. Most of all, we will periodically exchange information about migrant Chinese sex workers and latest situation in different destination or midway countries/areas. In addition, on May Day (International Labor Day), we joined the public rally with different labor groups and released a joint statement themed ‘Respect Migrant Sex Workers’. We would like to tell the public on this day that migrant sex workers are also labors enjoying basic rights.

Zi Teng statement on police frame-up for Street Sex Workers

Joint Statement on Labor Day

Li Yuen-Yee Incident and Urge to revise the police undercover guidelines and

Queer-I@3.8

On International Women’s Day, we were invited by the Department of Gender Studies and Department of Cultural Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong to give talks at open forum and do a workshop for the event ‘Queer-I@3.8’. We discussed with other speakers at the open forum about making room for more different sex/ualities. Our discussions drew much attention from both professors and students.

We also hosted one sex education workshop themed on “Media and Porn/Erotic Culture” for high school students. Through group games and interactive discussions, students can speak more freely in their style, discussed porn/erotic culture with each other from different perspectives. We also made use of role-play to lead students into deeper discussions, to help us understand how students look into issues about marginalized groups such as homosexuals and sex workers. Most students were enthusiastic in the discussions and were able to voice out their opinions in a carefree way. This is very different to their routine school life. Though we did not have enough time at the conclusion part to explain more to students, that they generally lack thorough understanding in some abstract concepts, the carefree style did make more room for students to think of the discussed issues. Many students did tell us afterwards that they had developed new perspective to look into the issue of porn/erotic culture. Some even told us that they changed their negative attitudes towards sex workers after the workshop.

“Wonderful Sex-Sex Education Workshop”
In order to make more room for discussions on sexualities and gender, we organized a series of sex education workshops for the public. We had our first sex education workshop on May 8. The workshop attracted much attention from both public and media. We quickly recruited the participants. Once again, we realize the effectiveness and vast influence of mass media.

In general, participants were enthusiastic in both speaker’s teachings and discussions, that we realized the Hong Kong public did lack enough space for discussion on sexualities and gender. We have already laid down the schedule for other sex education workshops in coming 4 months. We hope that we can continue to create more space for discussions on sexualities and gender.

Sex Education Series

Reserve Fund for Migrant Sex Workers’ Rights
We recently set up a reserve fund to further defend migrant sex workers’ legal and human rights. Your support is highly appreciated. Please kindly let us know if you would like to show your support and care on this group.

“Sex Work in 10 Years…”
We are going to share with you our documentary ‘Sisters and Zi Teng’ on June 13. After the film, we will do a seminar, discuss and share with each other the various changes on sex workers and in the industry in the past 10 years. We sincerely invite you to join us.
Venue: Zi Teng Activity Center
Date and Time: June 13, 2007 (7.00pm)
Price: HK$30

List of Donors (March/2007 – April/2007)

We apologize for any omissions!!