Coronavirus fears hit world's oldest profession

LOS ANGELES -- "Being a prostitute has always been a good option in times of crisis... until this one," says Bruno, a sex worker who fears catching the deadly coronavirus at a time when those in his trade are more vulnerable than ever.

One of approximately a million sex workers in the United States, Bruno -- not his real name -- has stopped taking clients in the past month as the once-in-a-century pandemic arrived in America.

Like most legal trades, demand for the 33-year-old's services has plummeted with much of the country staying home under lockdown.

But Bruno, who is based in the Los Angeles area, started in this business about 2 years ago precisely because he couldn't get a steady job that paid well.

Now his savings are rapidly dwindling -- and unlike most unemployed workers, Bruno is not eligible for federally approved relief.

Despite his health concerns over a pandemic that has killed more than 14,000 people in the US, Bruno is considering returning to work.

"I'm going to have to take the risk, it's the only way I can make money," he said.

Demand has already fallen by around 80 percent, he said -- but a handful of clients are still contacting him.


Bruno already considers his job to be high-risk because of potential exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.

"I'm surprised that, with this virus going around, people still want to take the danger," he admitted.

Returning is not a decision he takes lightly.

"How can I be sure the person is taking care of themselves?" he asked.

'THE ONLY WAY'

Small businesses hit by the crisis seeking emergency loans, according to government guidelines, may not sell "products or services... of a prurient sexual nature."

"Our government's unwillingness to recognize sex work as a non-criminal venue of employment means that many workers are quickly being pushed into a state of financial desperation," wrote Molly Simmons, a New York sex worker, on the Huffington Post.

The situation, she warned, may force sex workers to "accept clients they know aren't safe and risk an assault or rape because they need to feed themselves or their children or keep the electricity on."

The Desert AIDS Project, an NGO specializing in HIV-AIDS in California, has published recommendations for sex workers during the pandemic.

"When negotiating services, prices, and laying ground rules, cover off on coronavirus too," it advises, suggesting other measures such as protective gloves.

Other organizations have promoted ways for sex workers to avoid physical meetings altogether during the pandemic.

Advocacy groups COYOTE and BAWS have called on clients to make donations or pay in advance for post-crisis services.

Some sex workers have emulated pornographic actors by making a living from home via webcam appearances and connecting with clients by phone calls or messaging.

Bruno has friends who already do this and earn up to $3,000 a month.

But he is wary of that route, which risks exposing his identity.

"I'm not criticizing it, but I'm not getting into it," he said. "I don't want my financial difficulties to cost me my privacy."

Agence France-Presse

Is it curtains for Amsterdam's red light district?

THE HAGUE, Netherlands—Amsterdam's mayor on Wednesday proposed drawing curtains over the notorious glass-fronted booths where sex workers ply their trade, as part of an overhaul of the city's famed red-light district.

Femke Halsema, the Dutch capital's first female mayor, presented 4 options for improving conditions for women who work in prostitution, cutting crime and reducing the burden of mass tourism in the area.

The red-lit canalside windows and sex shops of the Wallen district near the main train station are one of the biggest draws for the 18 million tourists who flock to the Netherlands' biggest city every year.

"For many visitors, the sex workers have become no more than an attraction to look at. In some cases this is accompanied by disruptive behavior and a disrespectful attitude to the sex workers in the windows," her office said in a statement.

"At the same time, there has also been a major increase in unlicensed, underground prostitution."

Under the mayor's first option "the curtains of the window brothels close" so that "sex workers and their workplaces are no longer visible from the street," the statement said.

Other suggestions include moving some of the window booths out of allen to other areas of the city or closing down all of the booths in the area and setting up a new red light district elsewhere.

However, the city could also increase the number of window brothels in the red light district from the current level of 330, while "the establishment of a sex work hotel is also a possibility".

The mayor will meet sex workers, residents and local businesses in July, and Amsterdam city council will discuss her proposals in September.

Prostitution was legalized in the Netherlands in 2000 and sex workers can register with the local chamber of commerce and pay income tax.

Around 7,000 people work in the paid-sex sector in Amsterdam, with around 75 percent of them coming from low-income countries, particularly eastern Europe, according to official figures.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

K-pop star held on drug charges in latest scandal

SEOUL, South Korea - K-pop and drama star Park Yoo-chun was arrested on Friday on charges of buying and using illegal drugs, a court said, the latest in a series of scandals to hit the South Korean entertainment business.

Suwon District Court approved the arrest warrant for Park, 32, due to concerns over possible destruction of evidence and flight risk, a court spokesman told Reuters.

Park is suspected of having bought about 1.5 grams of methamphetamine with his former girlfriend earlier this year and using the drug around 5 times, an official at the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said.

Park has denied wrongdoing, saying he had never taken drugs, and he again denied the charges in court, Yonhap news agency said.

Park's contract with his management agency had been cancelled and he would leave the entertainment industry, Park's management agency, C-JeS Entertainment, said on Wednesday.

Park was a member of boyband TVXQ between 2003 and 2009 before leaving the group with two other members, forming the group JYJ.

A scandal involving sex tapes, prostitutes, and secret chat about rape led at least 4 other K-pop stars to quit the industry earlier this year.

The cases sparked a nationwide drugs bust and investigations into tax evasion and police collusion at night clubs and other nightlife spots.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

China keeps 'education' centers for prostitutes

BEIJING -- When Chinese legislators recommended the abolition of "education" detention centers where prostitutes and clients can be held without charge for 2 years, activists hoped the facilities' days were numbered.

They will have to wait longer.

The rubber-stamp National People's Congress (NPC) passed only one new law when it ended its annual session on Friday -- and it had to do with opening up foreign investment.

Under the nearly 3-decade-old system, police have unilateral power to detain sex workers and their clients for up to 2 years in "shelter and education" centers.

Critics say the centers have little to do with education.

"There may be resistance inside the regime against abolition, perhaps by the police, as this would take away some of its arbitrary detention powers," said Wang Yaqiu, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.

In 2013, testimonies of ex-detainees collected by Asia Catalyst -- an organisation that defends the health of marginalized groups in the region -- revealed the harsh living conditions in the centers.

These included ill-treatment, forced labor, and the obligation to pay for subsistence and forced medical examinations at prohibitive prices.

"All this is a matter of money, the talk of rehabilitation or ideological education is hollow, it is just a way of extorting money on behalf of the state and the police", one of the women told the group.

Shen Chunyao, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee's legislative affairs commission, said in December that "the time has come to begin the work of abolition". 

"In recent years, the use of the detention and education system has gradually decreased, the number of people in the centers has clearly diminished and they have been banned in some places," he added.

'VERY DANGEROUS' 

Discussion over the future of the centers came after China's top legislative committee abolished its system of "re-education through labor camps", known as "laojiao", in 2013.

Shutting the labor camps -- introduced more than half a century ago as a speedy way to handle petty offenders -- closed the curtain on a dark aspect of the country's modern history long criticized by human rights groups and which Chinese officials admitted was no longer viable.

But authorities retained the right to detain sex workers and their clients, and in 2014 police announced that popular actor Huang Haibo would be held for 6 months for having solicited a prostitute.

That prompted a rare instance of dissent from state media, which questioned the system.

Getting rid of the detention centers would be "a very positive step for the rule of law in China", said Shen Tingting, director of advocacy and policy at Asia Catalyst. 

Although illegal, prostitution remains widespread in China, with an estimated several million sex workers.

Many living in Beijing were driven out with migrant workers as part of a demolition campaign in the city's slums in 2017.

"Today they are in the suburbs, isolated, with no place to work. They go online and go to the customer's house, it's very dangerous," Shen said. 

She said the existing legal arsenal is already "sufficient" -- prostitutes and their clients can be fined up to 5,000 yuan ($745) and face up to 15 days of administrative detention. 

But Shen is unconvinced that attitudes towards sex workers would change, even if the forced re-education of prostitutes eventually disappears.

"The repression will continue," she said, "and one wonders what new system (could) replace the old one."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

German couple jailed after selling son for sex on the internet

A German court on Tuesday handed down lengthy jail sentences to a couple for repeatedly sexually abusing their now 10-year old son.

The mother of the boy, identified only as Berrin T. under German law, was jailed for 12-and-a-half years while her partner, indentified as Christian L., received a 12-year sentence followed by preventive detention in a case that shocked the country and raised serious questions about child protection services in Germany.

The court found that the couple had sexually assaulted and raped the boy for years, and sold him on the so-called dark net to pedophiles between May 2015 and August 2017.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Ex-sex worker made a dame in New Zealand honors list

WELLINGTON - A former sex worker was made a dame in the Queen's Birthday honors list in New Zealand on Monday, in recognition of her services to the sex industry.

Catherine Healy was instrumental in bringing about New Zealand's 2003 decriminalizing of sex work and the introduction of some of the most liberal prostitution laws in the world.

But the 62-year-old said she was surprised at the honor, which officially makes her a dame companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

"It's not something I would have expected," she told Radio New Zealand.

"In fact, I always say I expect to be arrested at dawn, not to have this kind of tremendous honor and I was just very affected, very touched."

Healy has led the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective since 1989 and her honours citation said she had built it "into a globally respected public health provider".

She spearheaded the campaign for the 2003 law reform which allowed brothels and street workers to operate legally.

The reform meant sex workers were covered by employment, health and safety laws, giving them rights they had never previously enjoyed.

Healy said her new title showed how much attitudes had changed.

"This honor, and to have it given to me, is about saying, 'Okay, it's okay, you can come in from the cold, you and yours'," she told the national broadcaster.

New Zealand awards honours twice a year -- at New Year and to mark the official birthday of Queen Elizabeth II in early June.

Other recipients honored on Monday included former prime minister Bill English, who was made a knight.

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Ex-pimp helps women cook their way to new life in Hong Kong

HONG KONG - Pimp turned do-gooder Kaushic Biswas has swapped the brothel for the kitchen and is now teaching the sort of women he once exploited how to cook their way out of human trafficking.

It is a total change from his Mumbai life back in the 1990s, when Biswas earned big money as a pimp, managing and selling women for sex after they had been trafficked into prostitution.

"Every night I broke down and cried. I cried because I was part of the exploitation," Biswas told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Biswas was a trained chef whose life took a bad turn in 1991 and has now come full circle. Biswas says he wants to help victims of trafficking, the sort of women he once sold for sex to be abused by the wealthy clients he calls "johns".

"Sometimes they forced me to watch."

MASTER CHEF

Born in Calcutta, India, Biswas trained as a chef then worked in top hotels. But aged 21, he changed tack, discovered the underworld of Mumbai's discos, and worked for 18 months hooking up women with wealthy clients, many from the Middle East.

"I was lost and needed money to survive. I knew I wasn't supposed to do this," he said. "Many of these ladies cried with me. They were drinking, some of them took drugs. Drinking was like drinking water for them."

Something had to change. So Biswas bought a plane ticket to Thailand to escape Mumbai, working once more as a chef, first in a 5-star hotel in Thailand, next under his mentor in Hong Kong.

It was here that Biswas feels he found his true calling.

Biswas said he found solace in a church and joined fellow believers, setting up an outreach post in Chungking Mansion, home to some of the cheapest housing in the city.

He reached hundreds of drug addicts, dealers and refugees. This led to a later project that also supported domestic helpers trapped in debt bondage and migrant women working as prostitutes in Wanchai's notorious red-light district.

"We hope to train bar girls who want to leave the industry," said Biswas. "I'm a chef. That's my gift. [I want to] use it. Whether it's with prostitutes, drug addicts or refugees."

Taste of Hope - a social enterprise launched in June 2016 with church help - now offers free cooking classes and trains some of Hong Kong's most vulnerable people in how to run a small business. There was no mention of God in the classes attended by Thomson Reuters and Biswas instead used his kitchen skills and background in the sex trade to connect with the trainee chefs.

"Job training provides skills and alternatives so that [trafficking survivors] do not fall prey to economic pressures. But more importantly, it helps rebuild their values and identities," said Sandy Wong, Chair of the Anti-Human Trafficking Committee of Hong Kong Federation of Women Lawyers.

LOST SOULS

About 340,000 migrant women, mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia, work as domestic helpers in Hong Kong, according to a U.S. government "Trafficking in Persons" report.

Some employment agencies charge excessive placement fees or issue fraudulent debt contracts above the legal limit in Hong Kong, leading to debt bondage, the State Department report said. Traffickers trick women from the Philippines and Thailand to work in prostitution in bars, then wield control through crushing debt repayments and by withholding passports.

Last June, Biswas began the three-month cooking course in partnership with Harmony Baptist church in the red light area of Wanchai with a mission to reach trafficking victims.

Once a week, Biswas and his co-worker Preston Hartwick teach Indian cooking to about six to eight women, including victims of debt bondage and sex trafficking.

Kat, 23, is a bar girl and trafficking victim from the Philippines who recently joined the class. About a month ago, Kat says she was tricked into prostitution at a bar in Hong Kong. She was desperate to find work to support her daughter and ill mother. For the next three to four months, she will now have to pay off a debt to the agency that recruited her.

"I'm traumatized. There are three other women at my bar that feel the same. I always feel in danger. I take a risk every time I go out with a male customer," said Kat as she wept.

Domestic helper Maria Reyes, 34, is also new to the job training. Sole bread-winner for her 10-year-old son, husband and mother in the Philippines, Reyes was laden with debt after signing an agency contract twice that stipulated she pay back more than 80 percent of her monthly salary for seven months.

"It really helps me a lot. I cannot afford [to pay for a] cooking class. I'm thinking about seriously opening my own business," said Reyes, who has worked in Hong Kong since 2012.

The church that partnered with Biswas said it is trying to help trafficked people get home to a normal family life.

"We feel that Taste of Hope's work gives them hope that they can take more control of their own future and get a job that also allows them to live with their families instead of overseas," said Pastor Chris Hartwick of Harmony Baptist church.

source: news.abs-cbn.com