Sunday, August 05, 2007

Oldest Profession Flourishes in China



Economic desperation fuels industries like trafficking and prostitution. Poverty, lack of education, and unemployment force people to take risks and find ways to earn enough money to care for their families. These factors create large populations of men, women, and children who then become vulnerable to forced labor, forced prostitution, and other forms of exploitation.

From the Washington Post:

No longer limited to well-known bars or a growing number of karaoke parlors, prostitutes are everywhere in China today, branching out onto college campuses, moving into private residential compounds and approaching customers on mobile phone networks.

Some experts say a complete evaporation of social values caused the explosion of the trade, and they cite the young sex workers who are in the business for easy money and fancy clothes. But the majority of prostitutes have violated old social mores out of desperation to help their families says Jing Jun, a sociology and AIDS policy professor at Tsinghua University


"They are absolutely moral. A lot of these women send half their income back to support their families. They're more filial than I am," Jing said. "Among government officials, Chinese social scientists, health professionals, they are coming around to see that prostitution is not fundamentally connected to a lack of values but a lack of jobs, choices, opportunities and education."


Read the full article

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