SEX WORK AND THE LAW - HIV/AIDS Data Hub

there are many illegal practices perpetrated by the police, such as entrapment, assault
and rape. 298
Another study was conducted in Beijing in 2008-2009 of 348 internal migrant female sex
workers. Some were street-based, some were based in entertainment establishments, and
some worked at personal services businesses such as hair salons, footbath, sauna, and
massage parlors. 62 percent of street-based workers reported that they had been arrested
compared to 30 percent of those working from entertainment establishments and 15
percent of workers operating from personal services businesses. 299
Zheng describes an incentive-based system whereby police who arrest high numbers
of hostesses and collect the most fines receive honours and cash bonuses from their
municipal government. 300 Zheng describes local corruption as a factor in exploitation of
sex workers. Some police demand sexual favours and sex workers face risk of violence:
Because the state’s anti-prostitution policy is manipulated and usurped by local officials
and bar owners for their own ends leading to a violent working environment for the
hostesses, hostesses do not disclose their real identity, which makes it more convenient
for men to be violent towards them and even to murder them. 301
A Hong Kong based sex worker organization, Zi Teng, alleged patterns of abuse of sex
workers by police in mainland China in a report submitted to the UN Committee Against
Torture, as follows:
Abuse of sex workers is systemic within the police force. This can be explained by the
near total discrimination faced by sex workers in China, and not their illegal status.
Because of the position sex workers occupy in Chinese society, even the police think
nothing of transgressing the law in carrying out abuses against them.
Police in Mainland China embark on periodic crackdowns: arbitrary arrest is common
as is assault and sometimes the insides of raided properties are vandalized and
furniture is removed. As arrests are rarely made at the time of the crime (while the
sex worker is providing sexual services for the client), police officers are intent on
extracting a guilty plea from the suspects. Torture is commonly manifested as physical
assault, and verbal abuse is present in nearly every case. Some officers exploit their
dominant position to rape suspected sex workers. 302
According to Burris and Xia, the situation is often more complex than it appears and there
is a significant difference between the formal written law and actual law enforcement
practices:
…the commercial sex trade has not been forbidden, but just informally regulated.
Police practices are, to some extent, independent of the written laws concerning
prostitution. Police generally have the discretion and the dexterity to deploy a wide
variety of criminal and public order laws to accomplish their street control and
298 Lingping C. (2011) Research on the impact of 2010 crackdown on sex work and HIV interventions in China,
CSWONF.
299 Yi H., Mantell J. et al (2010) op cit., p.176.
300 Zheng T. (2010) Complexity of female sex workers’ collective actions in post-socialist China, In:
Demystifying sex work and sex workers: Wagadu 8, 34-68, p.40.
301 Zheng T. (2010) op cit., p.41.
302 Zi Teng (2008), Untitled document (Submission of Zi Teng), p.12, Available at Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights website, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cat/docs/ngos/
ZiTengHongKong41.pdf
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