News from Asia 2004

Mistress in Batam? You'll be booked - Indon govt crackdown: Get married or else

SINGAPOREANS with mistresses in Batam will be in for a rude shock if the authorities catch them. They will be ordered to get married immediately if they are caught. The Batam municipal government will start the raids from next month, reported The Jakarta Post. Couples found living together without a marriage license face a maximum fine of 5 million rupiah ($1,015) and would be married off en masse.

Mr Rayanis Aminah, the spokesman of the Batam social affairs office, said: 'The plan will be executed next month, following the recent order by Batam Mayor Nyat Kadir.' The aim is to reduce the number of unmarried couples in Batam, which currently stand at about 2,000 couples. It is not known how many relationships involve Singaporeans. Mr Rayanis said: 'The raid was supposed to be held in March, but it was delayed to allow information on the raid to be disseminated.

'Without prior information, the Indonesian government is concerned that the raid would spark public protests, especially from those unmarried couples.'

So, the social office started an information drive in April. Batam has a thriving sex trade that attracts prostitutes from across Indonesia. It has about 2,000 sex workers, said physician Evianora Azwar at the Nongsa community health centre. Some have become mistresses to Singaporean or Malaysian nationals, she said. Most of the women are between the ages of 18 and 25 and are sexually active. They are usually migrants with no parents to monitor them, a situation that has led to promiscuity, she said. Some of them had become mistresses to Singaporean or Malaysian nationals living about 40 minutes from the city. They live in housing complexes or boarding houses around the Nagoya area.

A survey by Indonesian non-governmental organization Partnership for Health and Humanitarian Foundation last May found that about 600 Singapore men head to the island every Saturday for sex.

Many Singaporeans also have mistresses at three housing estates on the island. Even among the mistresses, there are different classes, depending on the type of sponsor they manage to snag. Mr Azhari Abbas, the chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) in Batam, asked the Indonesian government to be more serious about the drive. He said that he had heard of the plan about three months ago, but it never materialized. 'There should be no more delay. The huge number of couples living out of the wedlock disturb our community, he added.

17 July 2004 - India- bar dancers Young Girls Into Part-Time Flesh Business For Easy Money

The article is about how the young girls from India's conservative middle-class family moving towards earning easy money to maintain their high lifestyle.

By Ameen Kader,

The main reason for this is aggressive media advertising of fancy consumer and lifestyle products, the desire for which is luring school and college girls into part-time prostitution to make a fast and easy buck. "An alarming number of the schoolgirls, being attracted by those fancy products, have started taking to the sex trading - so that they can earn quick money and possess those items", sources from the Commission say. Another alarming fact is that there is a decrease in the average age of girls that join this profession each year- from 14 to 12 over the last decade. This increasing demand for young girls is because of the fear of HIV/AIDS.

Mumbai, the largest flesh market in the country has reached the figure of 1.5 lac (150 thousand) prostitutes. Mumbai’s major red light areas count up to 75,000 prostitutes, out of which almost 50 per cent carry the HIV infection. This has also created a great demand for the minor girls. The Mumbai city, commonly understood to be India’s most westernized metropolis, has created a great craze among young college girls from upper-middle class families, to a pricey and modern life style. "They can not fulfil all their desires with the limited pocket money that they get from middle class parents and are looking for earning easy money which encourages them to do part-time bar dancing or prostitution also", a city based psychiatric said. Those college girls wait around the pubs and discos in the evening, for friends with whom they can enjoy the evening without spending money. Some of the city’s leading psychiatrists feel that this is a dangerous trend, which may encourage those part-time bar dancer or those who want to enjoy the evening in the pub or discotheque without spending money with male companions, to step into prostitution in the future.

According to city based NGO, Prerna, that works for the prostitutes, girls are sold for Rs.2000 to Rs.5000 or sometimes Rs. 35,000 to Rs. 50,000, the price depending upon the beauty, height, color, physical development and of course the age of the girls. "Girls are brought with the promise of jobs from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal and Nepal and sold out to the brothels of Mumbai", Ms Preeti Patkar, Director of Prerna said. "It is not necessary that they are sold directly to the red light areas, sometimes they come after being used by several hands", she added.

According to the police sources 65% of the 15,000 people who go missing in the four metros every year, are girls. On an average, three girls are brought into the Mumbai city every week, to join the world’s oldest profession. To cope with this situation, the Social Security Branch of Mumbai police have adopted a new plan where 80 plainclothes policemen have been posted in eight different long-distance train terminals and interstate bus depots. "We will keep a watch at different railway terminals where anyone who seems to be a stranger to the metropolis, will be enquired about and sent to their own destination", said DCP D. Kanakratnam, Crime Branch, Mumbai police.

But despite several steps taken by police and government, very little success has been achieved so far to control this situation. A far more dangerous situation is being created by the prostitutes who are infected with HIV in Mumbai. The flesh trade is increasing, and with almost 50 to 60% of the prostitutes being HIV positive, the rapid spread of AIDS in Mumbai is becoming difficult to control. The result? Today, there are 3.51 to 4% HIV positive cases among pregnant women and at least 76,000 recorded HIV patients in Mumbai itself.

17 July 2004 - Bombay - Sakkubai is a crafty old prostitute, with a mischievous smile, a good heart and hidden depths of pain.

For most of her 50-or-so years, she has sold sex for money on Falkland Road, one of the most notorious red-light districts in Bombay. She has seen life's rough edges since she was shipped here at the age of 14 from a small village in central India.

Blood tests among commercial sex workers in Bombay have shown more than half of them are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In the past five years, Sakkubai has watched 13 of the women who worked in her rickety brick brothel die of the disease.

So now she gladly works with the Saheli Project, a local AIDS prevention charity, passing out condoms to her sisters in the profession. "Our lives,'' she explained, "are more precious than money.''

For the customers -- typically migrant laborers, cab and rickshaw drivers, truckers and students -- a visit to a Falkland Road brothel can cost $2 to $4, or perhaps $10 for a longer encounter. Women working the streets outside the brothels will turn a trick for $1 or less.

Despite India's outward image of sexual modesty, the scope of prostitution in India's largest metropolis suggests a more complex picture, and a troubling one for those attempting to prevent an uncontrolled outbreak of AIDS.

An estimated 4,000 prostitutes work the Falkland Road district alone. In nearby Kamatipura, an even larger flesh-trade bazaar, as many as 20,000 women sell their bodies to willing buyers. Each woman may serve four to six customers per day.

As such, the red-light districts of India's cities, and those of Bombay in particular, have been engines driving the growth of the epidemic throughout this nation of more than 1 billion. India today is logging nearly 1,000 new AIDS cases per month, and has an estimated 4.6 million HIV infections.

In 1997, tests found only 1 percent of Bombay prostitutes were infected with HIV. Just five years later, 54 percent of the sample tested positive.

Identified as an AIDS hot spot, the red-light districts of Bombay have been the focus of a broad spectrum of public and private disease-prevention and social service programs. They distribute condoms, they provide treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, and they try to care for the prostitutes' children -- to feed and educate them and to provide a home when their mothers sicken and die. Many of these children themselves are HIV positive and need the same care.

"The greatest fear is to die and have no one to grieve for you,'' said Sara D'Mello, director of Ashray, a residence for 62 children of HIV-infected Bombay prostitutes.

Since 1995, the program -- partly paid for by USAID, the foreign aid program of the United States -- has been home for a handful of the most marginalized of Bombay's 16 million residents.

Ashray took in a 16-year-old girl who had been left to die in a garbage dump. She weighed 44 pounds.

"We couldn't get help to lift her up and put her in a police car,'' D'Mello recalled. No hospital would admit her. But the Ashray staff cleaned her up, fed her eggs, milk and vegetables, and saw her will to live return. She lived three more years but died in March.

In the beginning, Ashray housed about 30 children from 150 families. The numbers have doubled since, but the turnover is constant. "Nearly every month, we have a death,'' D'Mello said.

The word "AIDS" is never used in front of the children at Ashray, which roughly translates to "hope" in Hindi. The place operates much like any school or day care center in the United States. There's a playroom with a game of Snakes & Ladders (similar to the American game Chutes and Ladders) on the floor, kids' artwork on the walls, clay projects under way on a table.

A trio of sisters played happily in a group, while their mother lay in bed in another room, suffering from an AIDS-related fever. Another quiet 9- year-old clung closely to the director. Her mother had died a few weeks earlier.

An hour's drive away, in Kamatipura, another group of 80 children of prostitutes gathered for a lunch of rice and lentils. It is served up by the Committed Communities Development Trust, the same organization that runs Ashray. In addition to feeding the kids, the program provides a way for social workers to reach their mothers and sign them up for lessons about AIDS, the benefits of condoms, and how to refuse sex with clients who won't use one.

In a nearby building, 14 emaciated women sit in a circle, one nursing a listless 4-month-old baby. It is a support group for prostitutes sickened with AIDS. They share their lives, their common fears. Before their meal, they sing a prayer in Hindi: "God give us the strength to fight for ourselves; and bless us with your kind mercy.''

The program, called Roshni, is designed to show prostitutes infected with HIV how to live "a positive life,'' said Anagha Dev, a Bombay social worker. The program offers food, painting, drawing and dance.

Sex is a 24-hour industry in districts such as Falkland Road, where even in midafternoon women stand impassively, like mannequins, outside of row after row of curtained storefronts. Garbage on Falkland Road festers in picked-over piles 4 feet high, and sewage pools in the gutters. The streets are crowded with pedestrians, honking taxis and the ubiquitous black three-wheeled auto- rickshaws, which buzz and jostle like bumblebees through Bombay neighborhoods.

Yet this is also a community, with hardware stores, food stalls, restaurants and -- right across from a row of brothels -- a small mobile merry-go-round to entertain local children.

Into this environment, members of the Saheli Project bring free condoms and the ready advice of "peer educators,'' current and former prostitutes who talk up the benefits of safer sex.

A mobile van ferries teams of social workers and medical personnel from their offices at the J.J. public hospital to Falkland Road, where they dispense information on HIV along with medical checkups and free medication. They rely on a network of cooperative prostitutes.

In the dreary world of commercial sex in Bombay, however, it is difficult to imagine the pressures facing prostitutes, who work there not out of choice, but for survival in a land of extreme poverty. AIDS is a modern disease that has intruded on an ancient culture of commercial sex, where eroticism is enshrined in some of India's myriad religious traditions.

Sakkubai came to Falkland Road as a devadasi, or "servant of god,'' a young girl who is turned over to a life of prostitution by her widowed mother. In a practice rooted in ninth century India, devotees of the goddess Yellamma may turn their daughters over to a temple god in gratitude for the child recovering from an illness. "Married" to this god as young teens, these girls are then deemed unsuitable for marriage to a man. Unable to wed a breadwinner, these girls are trained as sexual servants, and are literally sold to brothels in urban areas.

Although the practice was outlawed in 1947, the powerful tradition among Yellamma worshipers in the south India state of Karnataka, as well as the financial incentives of the commercial sex trade, keep the devadasi system alive.

As a 14-year-old, Sakkubai thought she was being sent to Bombay from her rural village in Karnataka to train as a nurse. But her "friend" who accompanied her from the railroad station was instead her "agent." She was quickly initiated into her life as a devadasi commercial sex worker.

Most young girls in her position expect to live their entire lives in thrall to their "landlords," the brothel owners who skim 50 cents of every dollar earned. The prostitutes also share their earnings with "admins," whose role is like that of a pimp -- procuring customers, providing food and shelter, and handling all their finances, including payments to landlords and payoffs to police.

Today, Sakkubai continues her work on Falkland Road, surrounded by girls half her age. As a mentor, she urges them to insist on condom use with customers. She estimates that 75 percent of the Falkland Road prostitutes now follow that rule -- an educated guess on which the course of an epidemic may turn.

As for her own customers, when they insist on condom-free sex, Sakkubai's AIDS prevention program is simple.

17 July 203 - In the back room of a bar in Bombay, Kalpana and Yasmeen describe the elaborate costumes they've chosen for tonight's show.

Kalpana came to work as a dancer at one of the beer bars in Bombay (Mumbai) - but it wasn't her dance skills the bosses were interested in.

"They told us to dress up good... they didn't see our dance," she recalls. "They just tell us - dress up well and pay attention to the customer. First of all, it's our job to entertain them..."

These are mostly middle-aged men, delighting in a private Bollywood moment of their own.

But the girls aren't interested in the men, as much as in the wads of cash they wave at them, or shower over them, as they move to the music.

Bombay columnist Rohit Gupta spent three months visiting some of the city's 2,000 beer bars.

He uncovered the whole spectrum of bar culture, ranging from the high-class and corporate to the seedy and sinister.

"In [some places] you can actually call them and they sit down with you, for a tenner maybe," says Mr Gupta.

"You can talk to them, chat with them. The bar is attached to a hotel... [so] it's a bar as well as a brothel."

Beer bars are not illegal, but some of them act as a front for prostitution. It's a thriving industry, which brings together bar owners, hoteliers and traffickers.

If the bars are raided by the police, the penalties are far smaller than they would be for a brothel.

"We have to run and hide somewhere and when they go, we can come back, change and go home," says Kalpana.

On the outskirts of the city is a refuge for young girls rescued from prostitution.

Although most of the girls were in brothels, Balkrishna, who works at the refuge, is concerned that bars are becoming a new trafficking point for young women.

"We have lot of girls who were trafficked and sent to beer bars," he says. "This is a different type of prostitution."

"There are regular customers. They are very friendly to us - they don't say anything, they are really good. They just come here for entertainment - to drink and go home."

But ask them if they choose to work here, and their eyes become downcast with shame and sadness.

"I wanted to become a customs officer," says Kalpana. "But because of some family problems and financial problems, I had to come here."

16 July 2004 - Mumbai police clear out on prostitution by minors

Mumbai: In a major crackdown as part of the ongoing drive against prostitution by minors, city police raided six places, including two well-known dance bars, rescuing 27 minors while detaining over 70 bar girls for age verification.

Nearly 20 persons accompanying these girls were arrested in the drive, conducted last night (July 15,2004), jointly by the social service branch and local police stations, police said today (July 16,2004). Police raided three brothels on the V P Road in South Mumbai, rescuing 11 minors and arresting three managers and five pimps.

Another raid on a brothel in Nagpada led to the release of 12 minors, they said. Later in the night, police teams raided 'Carnival Dance Bar' in Worli and 'Golden Goose Dance Bar' in Gamdevi, they said adding, in the second case, four minors were rescued and 13 dancers and five waiters were detained while in Carnival, 58 dancers; five waiters and a manager were detained.

71 bar dancers detained would be subjected to medical examination to ascertain if any of them is a minor, police said adding, over 70 customers, who were also detained following the raids, were later released.

With 39 minor girls already rescued in earlier operations during the week, the figure after fresh raids has risen to 66. Police had, on July 14, rescued 18 minor girls from two places in the city and arrested seven persons, including three brothel keepers.

Prior to that, on July 12, 21 minor girls were rescued and three persons were arrested by police in two separate raids in different parts of the city.

14 July 2004 - China / Singapore Chinese Sexports
All across Asia, Chinese women are making their presence felt in the sex trade

When night falls, Tina trades in her jeans, T-shirt and sneakers for a skimpy black number. The skimpier the better. And most important of all: the dress must be easy to slip out of.
After all, the men want it that way. They like her to pose nude while they snap away with their new-fangled camera-enabled mobile phones.
Tips soar when she does that, and when she lets them touch her intimately. 'I can get up to $200 a night just sitting with ktv girl

clients, singing and drinking with them. If I agree to sleep with them, I can get $300,' said Tina, a Chinese national on a student visa in Singapore.
Just three months ago in June, the voluptuous long-haired beauty was a salesgirl in Shenyang in north-eastern China, earning 1,000 renminbi (S$210) a month. As she served customers, she dreamed of a better life. She wanted to travel. Get more education. Learn English. Pick up a trade.
On her days off, Tina talked to her friends. Some had been to Singapore and returned with wealth beyond their dreams. 'In China, people say Singapore is a land of opportunity. And it is,' she said. Like her ancestors before her, Tina decided to leave China to strike out for a better life.
After working for more than 20 years, her father, in his late 40s, earned 2,000 renminbi a month in an electronics factory. Her mother is a pensioned state worker. She borrowed close to 200,000 renminbi from friends and relatives to come to Singapore to study English. In Singapore, Tina quickly learnt how to make money the fast way: as a karaoke lounge hostess.
She said candidly: 'This is not something we ever talk about because we are not allowed to work while we are studying. But this is one of the main reasons why we are here - to make money. I don't see anything wrong with it.'
All across Asia, Chinese women like Tina are making their presence felt in the sex trade. Call it the invasion of the Chinese sex workers.
They come from all parts of China, including Fujian, Sichuan, Liaoning and Jilin. Economics drives many of these women out of China in search of a better life.
Economic reforms have led to 30 million unemployed in cities across China. Another 150 million are migrant rural workers roaming from job to job.
Last year, the unemployment rate was 9.9 per cent. Among those below 24 years, 27.2 per cent were jobless. Some young girls leave China with starry-eyed dreams of finding a decent job and netting a kind, wealthy husband. But others lead comfortable middle-class lives in China: they just want a better life.
They strike out for Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand or Singapore. Last year, tourist arrivals from China to these places totaled 6.69 million.
Most enter these countries legally, on social, student or tourist visas. The journey can be costly, even dangerous if they are smuggled across borders. But the ambitious and determined will try.
Ms Xiao Qian is one example. She was a policewoman in Jilin in north-eastern China. Fed up with the low pay and dangers of her job, she started doing part-time 'modeling' in hotels there.
She wanted to make big bucks fast. Taiwan beckoned. After all, her older sister, 30, had traveled to Taipei to marry an aged soldier, 65.
The sister sent her the money for a plane ticket and Ms Xiao set off on her six-month Taipei adventure. 'The whole purpose is to make money fast and prostitution is the fastest way,' she said.

07/11/04 - Porn, panic and pandemonium / Singapore

On page 7 of the Straits Times today (Wed, 11 Feb 2004) was a short news article about a new leader for the Chechen rebels. The story (originally from the Associated Press) described him as a "Saudi-born warrior so zealously Muslim that he is traumatized just by touching non-believers."
What an arresting description of the man! But is this just hyperbole or are there really such people on this earth?

Then I turned to page H8, read the story "Police probe porn VCD find in school", and saw more of them!

But hold on, let's get a few details together first.

As gathered from the Straits Times and the New Paper [1], what transpired was this:

On Tuesday, 3 February, a schoolteacher glimpsed a 14-year-old boy retrieving a pornographic VCD that had fallen out from his book, and trying to hide it. Two more VCDs were discovered soon after.

The school (which later I found out was Kent Ridge Secondary School) did some sort of investigation in the following days, but on Monday morning soon after school began, the boy concerned and 16 of his friends were summoned to the school office and told to wait in the corridor. They were to write an account of their involvement in the matter. For the next seven hours, they were kept there without food or water despite the hot sun burning into the area where they were confined.

A press reporter noted that at least one boy looked slightly sunburn by the time she arrived at the scene in the afternoon.

And was it a chaotic scene!

The parents had been notified only around 2 pm. They hurried to the school furious at their sons, but then on seeing how the boys had been treated, became even more furious at the teachers.

"None of us knew they were taken in at 8am. But I rushed down as soon as they called me at 2pm. I was so angry that my boy and his friends were being treated like criminals," said Mr A J, a parent who bought food and drink for all the students at 3.40 pm.

One boy, who suffered from Hirschsprung's Disease [2], was in pain and had to be rushed to hospital. The mother said she had notified the school on several occasions that her son had this condition, but
the school denied knowing about it.

Why didn't the teachers think of allowing food and water to the boys for all 7 hours?

"An oversight on our part," said the principal, Ms Chamb Cherk Ing.

The police were also called on Monday. Why were they not notified earlier? The principal said they themselves had "been investigating as best as we [could] ….Today, we decided that we needed to call the police in for guidance and help."

The parents, upset enough that they had not been told earlier, were even more upset that the school called the police.

A sober description of the principals' and teachers' actions would be that they "over-reacted". And no doubt we're going to hear this term again and again until the incident is minimized.

It actually tells you nothing, for it's just a description of the events distilled into one word. The more interesting question is, what can account for the way they acted?

Here was a simple disciplinary problem for which the commonsensical response should be obvious to all commonsensical people: the teacher, consulting with the principal, should have notified the first boy's parents and asked the parents to kindly deal with it. It should have been solved by the same afternoon.

But no, the problem simmered for days. The school interviewed the first boy, then his friends, to see how far the "cancer" had spread. And I say "cancer", because only if viewed in such threatening and
invasive light, would it have explained how the whole thing turned into an inquisition by Monday.

It wasn't an over-reaction. It was a case of moral panic.

Only moral panic brings about the suspension of humanity necessary to keep 17 boys in the hot sun for hours, without food and drink. "Oversight" - the principal's excuse -- is something that happens when you scribble a note about an appointment on a scrap of paper and then leave it at the bottom of the tray. Oversight cannot happen when 16 boys are within sight, just beyond the school office
door. When you can see them, yet mentally remove them from your conscience and responsibility as a human being, then you have parted ways with the rational. Thus panic.

And over what? Some porn VCDs, available from any street side peddler at $10 a flick.

How many schoolboys have ways and means to watch porn? Let me make a guess: the vast majority! It's part of growing up. It's part of one's developing sexuality, part of the process of learning to take risks, and yes, part of the process by which males learn to bond with each other.

Those of us who have watched porn will tell you they're boring. The storyline is usually thinner than Kleenex; the scenes and fornication positions predictable. The action is basically of just three or four
kinds, mechanical and repetitive, and mind-numbingly stretched to fill the 90 required minutes.

They are not just boring; they are stupefyingly boring. (And then you up the thrill level and watch live sex, and that too, you soon discover, is equally boring!)

Give people enough opportunities to get porn, and at some point when they're adult, the novelty will wear off.

But teenagers will go through a phase when hormonal surges and their natural human curiosity (something we should always celebrate) will mean they will want to find out about sex. Add in its taboo value and it becomes irresistible.

And then the theory says, they will get addicted, and their capacity to love will get all twisted.

The truth is, they will, almost to a man, grow up well-adjusted and sane.

Rather, we should wonder if it might be the opposite of the theory: that it is those who believe that sex is dirty who will get all twisted in their priorities, and who will feel so traumatized at the
mere sight of porn that they will erupt in the kind of the insanity that is moral panic.

THE police revealed in February that the number of hand-phone thefts last year jumped by 28 per cent from 2002, one of the biggest increases in crime figures for the year.

Every day, an average of eight phones were stolen or snatched, making a total of almost 3,000 phones lost. Most victims as well as culprits were young people. Thieves often approached their victims with a request to make an emergency call.

While the police did not suspect the existence of major syndicates, they were concerned that a thriving second-hand phone market would encourage thefts.

Sometimes you find them sitting on men's laps in Kopitiams; sometimes residents are mistaken for hookers

But as the 84-year-old retiree walked past the library in Toa Payoh Central, a long-haired woman, all dolled up, approached him and said: 'Lao bo, wo dai ni qu wan.' Translated, it means: 'Old uncle, let me take you out to play.' His amused reply: 'I'm not a three-year-old but over 80 years old. Play for what?' She wasn't put off. 'She followed me all the way to the interchange before giving up,' he added. 'I tried to walk quickly but it was of no use.' He is hardly alone in his heartland escapade.

The coquettish qiang or accent of China streetwalkers has floated out of Geylang and into residential areas such as Toa Payoh, Joo Chiat and Tanjong Katong, where they approach elderly men practically at their doorstep.

Joo Chiat MP Chan Soo Sen, who is also Minister of State (Education, Community Development and Sports), said that he gets four or five complaints a month. His constituents say Joo Chiat is becoming like the red-light district of Geylang. 'I'm talking regularly to the police on what we can do about it,' he said. He said of the hookers: 'Sometimes, they're sitting on men's laps in the kopitiams.' Other times, they're literally streetwalking. 'I was cycling around one evening when I saw a woman cross the road, knock on a lorry that was stuck in a jam, and jump in,' he said.

Marine Parade GRC MP Othman Haron Eusofe and Jalan Besar GRC MP Lily Neo also report a rise in complaints. Residents say they have seen the women at the old Woodlands interchange, the void deck of Block 254 Choa Chu Kang and in MacPherson Road's coffee shops, although The Sunday Times did not spot any in these areas. Sometimes the hanky-panky is all but in one's living room.

Housewife Lee Siew Heng, 30, who lives in Tembeling Road, said: 'At night, the girls and their customers park in front of our house, and you see them kissing.' Twice this year, China girls have rung her doorbell, asking whether they could rent rooms. Ms Lee also gets mistaken for a streetwalker. 'Sometimes, I go to 7-Eleven and men ask 'How much?'. So I take my sons with me now.' It's got to the point that businesses are moving out. Construction firm manager Jason Lim, 35, whose office had been in Joo Chiat Road for four years, said: 'It's bad image for business.'

It is the same in Tanjong Katong Road, where residents and shopkeepers say the number of China hookers has 'doubled'. They mingle with students from Chung Cheng High, Tanjong Katong Secondary and Tanjong Katong Girls' School (TKGS). Said TKGS vice-principal Terry Theseira: 'We ensure our school activities end by 6.30pm so that our girls can leave the area when it's still bright.'

MP Andy Gan (Marine Parade GRC), whose Mountbatten ward includes the road, said he has not received complaints, but may get residents to keep the authorities informed. Other solutions suggested by the MPs include: more frequent police raids, increasing the number of designated red-light zones so that such activities can be confined and regulated, and public education for Singaporean men.

Hong Kah MP Ahmad Khalis Abdul Ghani wants immigration officials to track visitors with suspect travel patterns. Mayor Othman says the women caught should be blacklisted and barred from returning. Yet, all of them caution against being 'unfriendly to our friends from China'.

Singapore recently relaxed restrictions on visitors from China, granting visas valid for up to 30 days, up from 14 days previously. They now form the second-largest group of visitors, after Indonesians. In 2002, 670,000 China tourists spent a total of $313 million here. Police confirm that the illegal China prostitutes they have caught were here on social passes and the situation in the heartland was being 'closely' monitored.

In Toa Payoh, The Sunday Times followed a Chinese streetwalker and her Singaporean customer into the library. They lingered at the Chinese children's books section but left in a hurry when they saw librarian Neo Yam Hoon keeping an eye on them. A library user, whom the woman had earlier solicited, tipped off Ms Neo. It's the first time such a thing has happened there, said the library's assistant manager, Ms Ong Hui Pheng. The pair left for a nearby food court. The man, apparently the customer, said when approached that he was a Singaporean and gave his name as 'Mr. Tan'. He claimed the woman from China was lost and he was trying to help her get her cell phone repaired.

The danger of having prostitutes in the heartland, said sociologist Paulin Straughan, is that it becomes more tempting for the men. 'There's still an element of guilt attached to visiting Geylang, but when she shows up in the neighborhood, it diminishes that perception of deviance as it happened in a 'normal' setting.' Ultimately, it is up to Singaporeans to solve the problem, said Mr. Chan Soo Sen. 'We have to ask ourselves why this is happening. And that is because there is a demand from our men.'

HONG KONG'S wealth and its proximity to and close ties with the mainland make it an attractive destination for illegal workers, especially working women. The number of mainland women involved in prostitution in the territory is rising rapidly.

Statistics show that one in every 1,000 mainland visitors last year was arrested for prostitution. That compares with one in every 1,428 in 2000 - an increase of 30 per cent. Of the 16,548 illegal workers arrested last year, 14,958 were from the mainland, a sharp 68 per cent increase from 8,940 in 2002. More than two-thirds of them were prostitutes.

Others worked illegally as renovation workers, cardboard scavengers or street vendors hawking goods such as contraband cigarettes. The Immigration Department said that between 5 and 7 per cent of the mainland prostitutes it arrested were repeat offenders. They return to Hong Kong using travel documents under different names. The women melt away into the squalid tenements of seedy districts like Mong Kok or Sham Shui Po. Many, overseen by their pimps, set up one-woman brothels in low-income housing blocks.

Residents complain that the women are a bad influence on their children. Most mainlanders enter Hong Kong on three-month family visit visas, 14-day business visas, one-week individual travel visas and tour visas. Only a few sneak into Hong Kong without travel documents or use forged documents.

Those caught working illegally are prosecuted and imprisoned rather than simply repatriated.

Mr Lefevre is surprised at how ang moh the Singapore Chinese are. He said: 'Whenever the Chinese class I'm in is over, the Singaporean students would switch from Mandarin to English to speak with me.'

Date: Mon Jun 21, 2004 Behind closed doors / Sexual Prejudice At Its Absolute Worst

Singapore Authorities have stepped up their raids along the streets of Geylang to preserve the government's exclusive monopoly on the immoral sex trade.

In the past, the sex trade was confined to only various streets in the infamous red-light districts in Geylang. Far from restricting these illicit sex trades, the operators (and various proponents of organized crime) have responded to the daily (and hourly) police raids by simply shifting their operations to other more extensive parts of Singapore.

The authorities have yet to learn their lesson that a heavy handed approach
simply cannot be applied as a universal solution to all problems.

Posted: 19 June 2004 1301 hrs - Behind closed doors: The high-class sex business in Singapore
By Jeanine Tan, TODAY

SINGAPORE : One of her favorites is a man in his 70s who never demands sex but likes her to dance for him. Sometimes, he dances the Macarena for her — stiffly.

With other clients, there is usually sex. The kind that would send polite company fleeing.

Group sex. Bondage play. Asphyxiation. Simulating necrophilia. Emily has done it all.

Emily, 28, is a Singaporean who makes her money acting out the fantasies of her clients.

Emily is a sex worker. She does not operate in the lorongs of Geylang but in luxury hotel rooms in the Orchard Road area. Her world is one the average Singaporean knows little about.

16 June 2004 - Singapore Review - Sexual Prejudice At Its Absolute Worst

Singapore is one weird country. That thought ran through my mind as I gazed upon the Sunday edition of the Straits Times (copy attached below).

I am still trying to come to grasp with the subtle logic behind the mesh mash of policies implemented by the nanny state. On the one hand we are told in no uncertain terms by the government that chewing gum requires a permit (and registration), and on the other hand it is entirely legal and possible for an 18 year old to avail himself of the services of any one of the few hundred legal brothels located along the infamous Geylang district.

What gives? Where is the logic? Lets put all that aside and naively accept the official line towed by Singapore's law enforcement officers, that basically it is impossible to control the oldest profession in the world, so some control is better then no control in the noble interest of the general public.

But wait a second here, there’s more to this then meets the eye. Not content with micro-managing the sex lives of the citizens, Singapore’s law enforcement officers have also declared that street walking is outlawed. So whilst its perfectly legal to have a fling with a prostitute in a Geylang brothel, it’s a NO No if the same lady approaches you on a street outside the Brothel and invites you to intercourse in any one of the readily available motels located
in the same street.

There is a hidden agenda in this mesh mash of haphazardly implemented laws.

1) The first obvious economic effect of the mesh mash of convoluted policies is that they have the net effect of creating a virtual monopoly on the sex trade in Singapore. Now this is starting to look vaguely familiar if we view the sex industry as simply another commercial venture.

Make no mistake there is huge money to be made in the gambling and sex industry and it is small wonder that it has remained the oldest profession in the world. And like any typical mafia boss, the powers from the havens want a piece of the action. Usually with a normal trade, the modus operandi is for the GLC/TLC to move in on the stakes and "unlevel the playing field."

But this is a rather delicate situation...No, Mr Lee and Ms Ho will not (and cannot) adopt the tried and proven formula: set-up another GLC/TLC to corporatise the sex trade. That's really not in keeping with the immaculately clean, virgin white uniform of the dominant party. So how do you have your cake and eat it, without getting your grubby fingers dirty?

Legalize the trade, and impose a tax on it. Make no mistake, the government has a direct stake in the set-up. Of cause the actual numbers are shrouded in secrecy but the amounts involved are substantive. Each working girl in the legitimized brothels can charge up to SGD150-SGD200 for 45 minutes of tender loving care. The figure can go up to SGD300 if the customer happened to be a foreigner who was not conversant with the house rates.

2) The flip side of the coin is that only ladies with permits are allowed to work in the legal brothels. The Anti-Vice squad maintains a daily log of each working girl as they have to log-in to their place of work and register each customer they bed. So it is possible to calculate right down to the dollar, the daily takings of each girl.

The girls typically originate from either Malaysia or Thailand. Now here's another mystery, why limit issue of permits to girls originating from only these two countries?

Again the ultimate effect is to create barriers to entry for other races (from eastern European countries and especially from Mainland China). The Anti-Vice squads conduct nightly raids on illegal streetwalkers (who also happen to be mainly China girls). The women are often chased and physically beaten by Singapore Law Enforcement officers, all in the noble name of cleaning of the streets. Never mind the minor fact that their legitimate counter-part is selling the very same product next door in a legal brothel.

In this respect we must really applaud Singapore's conscientious law enforcement officers. So dedicated are these virtuous gentlemen to their duties that they even saw it within their duties to avail themselves of the services of the very victims they were targeting. In the past years there have been several formal reports of law enforcement officers who have performed above and beyond their call of duty in this aspect.

So that then is how we end up with this unholy marriage of policies. The merits of the venture are determined solely on corporate business strategies.

Moral values have no place and are rendered totally irrelevant in the final analysis.

In this case the final victims are of cause the street walkers who not have to pay a King's Ransom in getting protection money from their personal "Ma Fu" (the local equivalent of a pimp who is supposed to look out for them and warn them of police raids). The government owned media (Straits Times and Sunday Times) have also been roped in to churn out bad publicity regarding female Chinese migrants. Many of these women are here for legitimate factory jobs but have been marginalized by local Singapore women who deem them as husband snatchers.

To those of you who want to flame me because I am taking the side of the China hookers, please remember that the sex trade is already there and thriving in its legitimized form and any argument you wish to address to me can also be addressed to our dear PAP government.

It is indeed a sad day when Singapore's Ruling Elite are reduced to virtual pimps and living off the takings of the sex industry. My hats off to you folks. That’s the government that you elected.

Yours disgustedly

Mr Sillipore

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China girls hitting on kopitiam Ah Peks, They target older men with CPF money at Geylang coffee shop

By Li Xueying

KOPI, teh or China lady?

At star station 23, in Geyland Lorong 23, heartland Ah Peks and China women mingle in a no-frills, no air-con, low-cost version of a karaoke lounge.

A kopitiam in Geylang's Lorong 23 has gained notoriety for being a 'no-frills, no-aircon' and low-cost version of a karaoke lounge where women from China accost grey-haired Ah Peks.

For men whose CPF pensions can't support exquisite Gong Li-look-a-likes and $350-a-bottle Chivas Regal at swanky lounges like Tiananmen, Star Station 23 Cafe Restaurant is perfect.

Some businesses in the area, such as brothels and restaurants, resent its presence. Others say the colorful denizens of Star Station 23 have been good for business.

Green plastic tables dot the coffee shop where retirees nurse 80-cent Chinese tea or $6 Heineken for hours. Each time a woman enters the premises, they check her out from head to toe.

If they like what they see, they beckon her over. If not, their eyes flicker back to actress Phyllis Quek on the mounted TV screen, or to their copy of Shin Min.

Making her move, a China woman zeroes in on a prospective client. Competition is tough, so many are bold about approaching men. The bolder women, meanwhile, zero in on prospects, unsolicited.
Speaking in lilting accents, they flirt with their long hair and tease with their hands. If the chemistry - and the price - is right, they adjourn, with their trick, to a nearby hotel.

It's a community in there.

The friendly kopitiam cleaner came to wipe the table where I was seated with my female photographer colleague and asked in Mandarin: 'Just got here today?'

In three hours, my colleague and I were propositioned three times. Referring to me, one of the men told his companion at the next table in Hokkien: 'This one - new girl. Never seen before.'

Competition is tough. The women are here on 30-day social passes, and need to recoup the money they borrowed to pay for their air ticket.

Ms Huang arrived from Jiangsu province on June 3, on a 11,000 yuan (S$2,255) loan. She has had only one customer so far, who paid $80 for her services. She said: 'It's so hard. There are so many young pretty girls here. Who wants a 40-year-old like me?'

After some flirting and teasing, if the chemistry and price are right, the couple may adjourn to a hotel. -- WANG HUI FEN It was her first time prostituting herself, claimed the divorcee. The high-school graduate worked as an accountant until she was retrenched in 1997. 'My son is 18, and we need money for his university fees. It costs 1,000 yuan a month. I look down on myself for doing this but
there's no choice,' she said tearfully.

A 60-something man, with thinning hair and a toothy grin, approached her and asked: 'Why so unhappy?' Some 45 minutes later, they were gone.

Ms Wang, 32, who arrived on Wednesday from Funan county, which is in Anhui province, was luckier. Fair, sweet and doe-eyed, she landed a customer in his 60s, who gave her $300 for spending the whole night with him.

She had told her gambler husband that she was going to find work in Shenzhen. They have two children, aged seven and 10.

'I heard that these older men are better than the younger ones. They're not so cunning and they won't run off without paying. Anyway, I just close my eyes.'

Some of the men at the kopitiam claim they weren't there for sex, but just to talk to the girls for 'company'. Odd-job laborer Khoo, 55, claimed: 'I come here once every two weeks not for the girls, but because the kopi here is very sweet.'

The stallholders, meanwhile, said they 'don't know anything'.

Other businesses in the area say the China girls began coming around two or three years ago.

Hong Kee Noodle Restaurant, located across the road from Star Station 23, has seen its business drop 40 per cent since.

'The customers get scared off. These girls are here when I open shop at 9am, and they're here when I close at 9pm. Sometimes, they come in without ordering and we'll chase them out,' said its manager, 59, who wanted to be known only as Ms Chong.

Chinese construction worker Zhang, 35, who rents the unit on the third level of the building, said the women are so aggressive that he's 'scared to go down to buy food'. 'They will pull at our arms
asking if we want to 'play' with them,' he said.

Not surprisingly, the legitimate brothels at Lorong 18 have been hit.

Mr Ong, who manages 11 Thai girls, said: 'These China girls are very clever. They know how to target these old men with the CPF money. They eat, drink and talk to them. They're like girlfriends. But it's
dangerous because they don't go for medical checkups.'

His prostitutes charge $40 for a 20- to 25-minute session, and are not allowed to 'socialize' with the men outside the brothel. The Chinese streetwalkers, on the other hand, negotiate their own rates.
Some may work with pimps.

Shop owners told The Sunday Times that police raid the area at least twice every two weeks.

But an hour later, the girls are always back, said Ms Chong.

Not everyone resents Star Station 23's presence. On San Woh Medical Hall, for example, has extended its opening hours from 8pm to 10.30pm after business went up by 10 to 20 per cent, fuelled by sales of condoms and Chinese medication.

Behind closed doors: The high-class sex business in Singapore
By Jeanine Tan, TODAY

SINGAPORE : One of her favorites is a man in his 70s who never demands sex but likes her to dance for him. Sometimes, he dances the Macarena for her — stiffly.

With other clients, there is usually sex. The kind that would send polite company fleeing.

Group sex. Bondage play. Asphyxiation. Simulating necrophilia. Emily has done it all.

Emily, 28, is a Singaporean who makes her money acting out the fantasies of her clients.

Emily is a sex worker. She does not operate in the lorongs of Geylang but in luxury hotel rooms in the Orchard Road area. Her world is one the average Singaporean knows little about.

As a high-class social escort, Emily can earn up to $1,000 an hour for "extra" services. Her clients come from all over the world. What they have in common is money — lots of it – and an appetite for sex, often kinky sex.

Emily, and others like her, are featured in Singapore writer Gerrie Lim's book Invisible Trade, an insider look at "high-class sex for sale in Singapore", which will hit bookstores this weekend.

Mr Lim, who splits his time between Singapore and Los Angeles, is the international correspondent for porn network AVN Online. He has also written for Billboard, Playboy, the South China Morning Post and The Wall Street Journal.

Invisible Trade comes six years after the late David Brazil's No Money, No Honey, a paperback guide to prostitution in Singapore that sold more than 20,000 copies.

Mr Lim's book tells the inside story on the lucrative escort agency business in Singapore and how it balances on the fine line between legal and illegal.

Escort agencies are perfectly legal businesses, and there are clients who really only want company or someone to pose as a girlfriend for a few hours.

Often, though, sex is the real purpose. One agency owner quoted in the book calls this "extending the booking".

Some agencies offer it almost openly as "discreet companionship", costing more than the regular "dinner companionship". One agency Today spoke to said that discreet means "full service", stopping short of mentioning sex.

A total of 242 people were diagnosed with the HIV virus in Singapore last year, the highest number since the start of the epidemic here in 1985. There is also a rising trend of cases among youths, who make up half of all infections.

Ahead of International AIDS Candlelight Memorial this Sunday, AIDS activists have renewed their call for the government to do more, starting with subsidies for anti-viral medication. Madam Tan lost her husband to AIDS in January after a five-year battle. What bothers activists like her is that HIV patients here do not get government subsidies for medication, which can cost S$900 to S$1,200 a month.

"With maximum support or even subsidy support for medication, I believe he could live many more years from now because of his mindset and positive nature. There were no subsidies because it's a non-standard drug," she said. "We really drained all the funds and also got into debt because the medication is expensive, and there's no ability to go out in the workforce, plus of course supporting children. By the time he passed away at the beginning of this year, there was nothing left. Whatever could be sold, had already been sold."

Brenton Wong, vice president of Action for AIDS, said, "Apart from education we need to go into care and support of patients. Whenever I go for international or regional conferences, people are very appalled to find out that Singapore is the only developed country which does not give direct subsidies for anti-viral treatment. "That has to change because that has an impact on prevention activities as well and people do not come forward now because they know that there's no support, they don't care."

Activists say at least 200 HIV-positive patients go to Thailand regularly to buy generic drugs that are almost 20 times cheaper than in Singapore. Action for AIDS hopes Singapore can work with pharmaceutical companies, or buy in bulk to make the medication more affordable. Another worry is the rising rate of HIV infection among youths. "We're quite worried now because we see youth as a vulnerable population. Not only in Singapore but globally, the trend is that half of the infections happen to people below the age of 25," Mr Wong said.

"In Singapore we know already that teenagers are very sexually actively. We have one of the highest abortion rates in the world, which means these young people are having unsafe sex. And that could put them at risk not only for teenage pregnancies but also HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases," he said. "I don't think the government is doing as much as they could. Sex education programs in the schools are not very effective; they talk down to the people."

Later this year, Action for AIDS will partner the Red Cross in a first youth outreach program for peer education. For the first time, this year's Singapore AIDS Candlelight Memorial will be held in the heartlands, at Tampines Central, a welcome sign that attitudes towards AIDS prevention and people with AIDS may be changing and moving into the mainstream. - CNA

Businesses like the Batam View Beach Resort are trying to promote the island as a family-friendly destination.

This 'unfair' image has hurt the tourism and golf business at the Riau island's hotels and golf courses. Some men have even turned down work there because of their anxious wives.

Indah Puri Resort and Golf Club's general manager, Mr Matthew Lui, said: 'It's a perception problem. There's a fear factor about coming here.' Each time the media reports on Batam's sex trade, hotel occupancy drops by 10 per cent, said Mr Martin Chan, chairman of the Batam Hotel Sales and Marketing Association. Corporate meetings have also been pulled as bosses didn't want their people at a destination so infamous for its prostitutes, he said. 'So it was quite a blow in terms of image and having to win that client over for future stays.'

On an island two-thirds the size of Singapore, Batam's six golf courses and 30 or so hotels, many Singapore-owned or managed, are fighting back, by promoting the place as an affordable family-friendly destination. Indah Puri, for example, has a one-for-one promotion to encourage Singaporean golfers, mostly men, to take their womenfolk along. Said Mr Lui: 'When the wives and girlfriends come along, they realise there's nothing to worry about. The sex trade is a very small part of what Batam has to offer.'

The sex workers are concentrated in Nagoya town and six villages, said Indonesian non-governmental organisation YMKK, or Partnership for Health and Humanitarian Foundation. Lost amid the clamour over Batam's sex trade are 'good, clean' attractions such as affordable shopping, sprawling golf greens and beautiful sunsets, said industry players. To woo families, Batam View Beach Resort offers packages for Mother's Day, Chinese New Year and other festive events.

Its neighbour, Palm Springs Golf and Beach Resort, 30 minutes away from Tanah Merah terminal by ferry, plans to build a retirement resort, apartments and an international school in its 270ha grounds, said its vice-president Alex Eapen.

'People can live here and work in Singapore,' he said. So he wants the wives to come along to give their nod of approval. The urgency is understandable, because Batam gets 100,000 Singapore visitors a month and is vulnerable to 'knee-jerk reactions' to negative news. When The Straits Times reported a study that said 600 Singapore men visit Batam for sex on Saturdays, Palm Springs said, business fell by 15 to 20 per cent. That same week in March, a management retreat and a medical conference at separate hotels were cancelled. Other factors, such as the Indonesian parliamentary elections early last month, may also have spooked would-be visitors.

The effects last a couple of weeks, the hotels said, but they fear long-term damage to Batam's image. But other businesses say the so-called 'tarnished' image hasn't put off investors or would-be employees. Mr Paul Tan, chairman of the Batam Singapore Club, which promotes links between Indonesian and Singaporean businesses, said: 'Work is work. Investors know that Batam is a good place to invest in, as there's less competition and costs are lower.' There are 1,000 Singaporeans working in Batam, he said.

One of them, Mr Steven Lim, general manager of PT Madeira Indonesia, a German multinational, said: 'My wife nagged, 'Aiyah, so many women in Batam'. But what's crucial, he said, is trust between husband and wife. 'If I really want to fool around, I can go to Geylang in Singapore.'

Mrs Sumimah Adil, 31, a housewife with five children, heard horror stories from a friend and an aunt on how their respective husbands met second wives in Batam. So she wouldn't let her husband, a welder, accept jobs there. 'I'm not the type to control my husband, but when it comes to Batam, I get very scared.'

A key police officer in Batam said the sex trade causes little disturbance to security. 'Yes, sometimes the men get drunk, get jealous over the women and quarrel. But it's very rare, just one or two cases a month.' Bintan, 10km east of Batam, has its share of the sex trade, with girls as young as 12 forced into prostitution, and Singaporean men maintaining 'weekend wives' in Tanjung Pinang town. But its image as a family and honeymoon spot doesn't seem to have suffered as much, because its resorts are clustered in a zoned area on the northern shore, 90 minutes' drive from town, said Bintan Resort Corporation (BRC), the area's master planner.

Batam hotels, on the other hand, are spread out over the island, including the town area. Mr Betram Wong, BRC's director of resort development, said: 'We've built up our brand as a family getaway, and it's something we guard very carefully.'

THE boy clad in a white shirt and dark blue pants sat on the kerb. Eyes wide open, the boy who looked like a student was watching the scene for a while. Then he walked into the darkness. Was he after cheap sex?

At the jungle vice den near at Woodlands Industrial Park E2, The New Paper counted as many as 115 men coming and going, many of them in cars, bikes and vans with Singaporean number plates while others had Malaysian plates.

We staked out the spot for nine hours through the night till the next morning. There were foreigners but locals also visit the area, as evident from the vehicles we saw and the voices we heard.

One end of the lane is blocked by concrete boulders and the other end faces a sidewalk. Motorcycles and bicycles can go past the boulders and climb up the sidewalk - but not cars and lorries.

The number of visitors seemed to swell from 8 to 10pm and again at 11.30pm and the end of it, we realized one thing. Some Singaporeans will do anything to get a cheap deal. Some of the people who turned up owned cars. Yet, they were willing to put up with the stench, the muck and the filth, a security guard who works near the site: It's cheap. They only charge $20 per person. I just can't understand how people can tahan (endure in Malay) the conditions. There are mosquitoes there and the place is filthy.'

When we went in at noon the next day, we were shocked by the filth. The 20 little shacks were all deserted. Each was rigged with four wooden poles and canvas or plastic sheets. There was a mattress or a wooden plank in each shack. The area was no bigger than four basketball courts - and littered with used condoms, food wrappers and tissues.

This was not the first time we were there. We were tipped off by a reader, and staked out the place about eight times during March and April.

Each time, we saw men loitering in the lane after dark. They would look around carefully to make sure they were not being watched before heading into the jungle and reappearing about 20 minutes later. They melted in and out of the darkness waving flashlights.

The security guard who declined to be named for security reasons said he was once invited by a foreign worker at his site to have 'a night of fun' there. He said he went out of curiosity, but he wouldn't say if he paid for sex. But he added: 'The guys who run this place are daring and well-organized. There is always somebody cycling to make sure the place is not watched by the law. The security guard said: 'Business is good, especially on weekends. I guess it's more convenient for the foreign workers to release their sexual desires here than going all the way to Geylang. 'The pimps cycle to construction sites in the area promoting their services.'

The security guard said as many as a few hundred men drop in on a weekend, particularly if it had not been raining. The security guard thinks a Thai syndicate employs Thai girls to service the men but he wasn't sure where the girls stay. We didn't see any of the girls when we watched the lane at night. Workers in the nearby industrial parks and Senoko use the lane because it is a faster route to their flats in the Woodlands estate. The nearest HDB estate is about 150m away, opposite Woodlands Avenue 9.

Local resident Martin Chew and his sons jog past Woodlands Industrial Park E2 to get to a field where they play soccer on weekends. The shortcut saves him 10 minutes. But they steer clear after dark, fearful of the strangers who come.

Mr Chew, 39, a technician, said: 'I try not to jog late at night. I have warned my two sons about the dangers there.' One cyclist, who only gave his name as Mr Lee, said he told his friends - especially girls - not to cycle through the lane.

Mr Lee, 22, a student, said: 'At night, you can see the silhouettes of many men loitering in the lane from the entrance. 'Some parts of the lane are so dark, you wouldn't be able to see anybody even if he was standing next to you.' We saw a police patrol car driving by, about 300m away from the lane, late one night - but it was too far away for them to spot what was going on. This isn't the first vice den in the area: Just last September, police raided a jungle hideout near Woodlands Avenue 4. They nabbed 66 foreigners, some of whom were suspected to be illegal immigrants involved in vice activities. The police have been notified.

Makeshift shacks, used condoms, and patrol dogs were discovered along a biking trail at Tampines Avenue 9 last September by The New Paper. The team saw some 20 makeshift huts, beds and even a kitchen. There were foreign men living there who would walk out of the makeshift camp to be picked up by lorries every morning.

On paydays and at weekends, construction workers living nearby visited the forested area for sex. Thai girls arrived at 7pm and left in the early hours of the morning. As many as eight girls a night serviced the workers on damp mattresses and cardboard, and gambling also took place.

The police arrested 39 women and 27 men late last year in a raid at Woodlands. They made their home in a heavily forested area - the size of four soccer fields - between Woodlands Avenues 4 and 9. Most were suspected to be illegal immigrants involved in vice.

A group of Thai illegal immigrants, gamblers and prostitutes made their home in the jungle hideout with six shacks on a plot of land near a construction site, bounded by Pioneer Road North, Kian Teck Road and Boon Lay Way. The village came to light when the pimp running the place was murdered. Police officers raided the village and arrested 245 people.

Six Thai women were caught in a raid to flush out vice. The women were found hiding in the living quarters of 600 male workers at a Jurong West construction site. The raid was conducted to check vice, drug pushers and immigration offenders. Three of the women turned out to be immigration offenders.

This is one article I wanted to post for my fellows Seabees. We rarely see news on the Seabees so when I received this one from Tommy Johnson (UT1 Retired) I had to post it on my site.

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq - Seabees prevailed in a 5-hour firefight Tuesday on the outskirts of Fallujah, protecting bulldozers building a berm to prevent insurgents from going around Marine checkpoints. Elated and relieved, the group rolled back into camp after dark, dusty and excited about accomplishing their mission without injuries while under fire from rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

"They stayed on it and kept returning fire," said Cmdr. Cliff Maurer, commanding officer of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74, whose theme is "Fearless." "We got it all done," said Maurer. "This is what Seabees did in the Pacific during World War II." While pushing up the earthen berm with a bulldozer, Petty Officer Jeff Atchison, 30, had a close call as a rocket-propelled grenade bounced off the berm before exploding. "It happened so quick, you didn't have time to think," said Atchison. "I got more angry than anything at the people that were trying to kill me."

Seabees are helping Marines build defensive positions to secure Fallujah, which is a center of insurgent resistance. The Marines have moved into the area and have cordoned off the town, while politicians seek to negotiate with the several groups of fighters that apparently inhabit the city.

All members of the Seabee party returned uninjured, though there were several close calls. The nearest brush with death or injury came to Equipment Operator Third Class Steven Mangrum, 26, whose helmet was struck by a bullet that went through the door of his Humvee. "We were taking fire. I was firing back," said Mangrum. "One came through the door and hit me in the head. I'm glad to be back." The insurgents fired several rocket-propelled grenades at the Seabees, many of which were duds. "We had one (RPG) by the back, one by the side and one by the front," said Engineering Aide Third Class Robert Wetzel, 24. "All of them were inert, and we had to mark them as unexploded ordnance."

On returning to the Seabee compound, the work party was welcomed joyously. "It's like a homecoming," said Wetzel. "Everyone got home safe. That's the best part." When the bullets began coming by, the Seabees heard, "Zzzip, zzip, zzip."During the past few weeks, Marines have trained the Gulfport builders to use more effective fighting techniques, lessons they apparently learned.

"We charged the berm and stayed there a while," said Builder Constructionman Christopher Roberts, who from a position behind the earthen berm fired 780 rounds from a machine gun at the insurgent strongholds in the city.

During the fight, the Seabees acted as armed infantrymen, protecting the equipment operators. "Every time the dozer moved forward, we moved forward with them," said Roberts, a solid 21-year-old Seabee nicknamed "Cupcake" who returned with a dust-covered face. "We're defensive in nature. We went out there and did the thing we're worst at. Now we're good at it." "We went out there looking for trouble, and we found it," said Roberts. "I need a shower, and I'm ready to do it again."

April 07, 2004 - Singapore denies rights to gay group

The Singapore government has denied freedom of association to a gay rights group and warned it to halt all activities, group officials said Tuesday.

The organization, People Like Us, has demanded that the government explain why it considers a support and advocacy group for gay people "unlawful, prejudicial to the public peace," and "contrary to the national interest," cofounder Alex Au said. "The world can rightly perceive Singapore to be an intolerant place that's refusing to move with the times," Au said.

The government warned in its formal rejection notice that the group must cease all activities, warning that members of unregistered societies face heavy punishments under the law, Au said. However, the
notice did not specify the penalties. No representatives of the home affairs ministry were immediately available for comment.

People Like Us first tried to register as a society in 1997 and was refused then as well, Au said. The group would follow the government's instructions and not hold further meetings, but as individuals they will continue to argue for equal rights, he added, noting that the group will also appeal the decision to the home
affairs minister.

People Like Us, which claims a membership of more than 1,000, has been using the Internet to push for equal rights in the tightly controlled city-state. Singapore bans gay sex, including it in its broad definition of "any act of gross indecency"--punishable by a maximum of two years in jail--but there have been few prosecutions of
gay men and lesbians, and Singaporeans are largely tolerant of gays.

IN a secluded corner of a pub at Paramount Shopping Centre, a man and a woman were getting to know each other intimately. Too intimately, as it turned out.

A surprise police check caught them allegedly in the middle of an indecent act. The plainclothes police officers arrested the couple - and that put an end to the merry-making at Pegasus pub last Friday. The pub was cordoned off as more officers arrived and detained another 22 women and three men within half an hour. The two pub-owners - a man and a woman - and two male bartenders were among those detained.

All were made to sit hand-cuffed in the corridor outside the pub, drawing curious stares from customers of nearby pubs. The women, believed to be mostly Filipinas, huddled together, shielding their faces, obviously uncomfortable in their mini-skirts, tight jeans and tube tops. As the women were led away in two batches, the three men sat still, talking to one another. The male owner, with hands bound behind, even struggled to stand up to ask this photojournalist to take his photograph just to show his disdain. A male customer was seen arguing with police officers over why his wife had been detained. (See report below.)

The operation lasted almost two hours, and dampened the mood in other pubs. The owner of a nearby pub complained that his business was affected. 'I had about 15 people and when the raid started, I was left with only two. When the police come around, customers just leave the area and go elsewhere,' said the 37-year-old man, who didn't want to be named.

A regular pub-goer, who wanted to be called David, claimed some pubs were known to bring in Filipinas to entertain customers. 'These girls would make customers buy drinks at exorbitant prices. For example, a bottle of beer for $20 and they get a $5 commission for every bottle they help sell,' said the 32-year-old contractor. 'In exchange, the customers could do anything they wanted with the girls - from blow jobs to hand jobs, and even stripping naked,' he claimed.

In January this year, 60 women were arrested for working here without proper documents at several pubs near Paramount Shopping Centre.

SO said Mr. Wilson Lau, who was upset that his wife was among those detained. The 36-year-old was with his wife drinking at Pegasus pub when the music stopped. 'The police came in and instructed all the Filipinas to leave the premises and be handcuffed,' he said. 'My wife, who's a Chinese Singaporean, stayed beside me, of course, but a senior police officer came over and ordered that she join the Filipinas.'

His wife, who wanted to be known only as Mrs. Lau, complained over how she had been allegedly treated.

She said she took out her IC to prove her Singaporean identity. 'But a lady officer just snatched the IC without even looking at it and grabbed my arms to shoo me out with the rest,' claimed Mrs. Lau, 32. 'I kept telling the police that I'm a Singaporean, and that I was with my husband, but the senior police officer just told his officers to handcuff me and made me squat down.'

The mother of two was later led to the van and taken to the police station around midnight. Mr. Lau stayed behind at the pub to try to convince the police that he and his wife had done nothing wrong and that she should be released immediately. But the police officers told him to go home, get his marriage certificate and take it to the police station. 'I don't understand why they had to arrest my wife even though she had her IC,' said Mr. .Lau. 'We weren't doing anything wrong, and we didn't even notice what was going on elsewhere in the pub as we were s

14 July 2004 - China / Singapore Chinese Sexports All across Asia, Chinese women are making their presence felt in the sex trade

14 July 2004 - China / Singapore Chinese Sexports
All across Asia, Chinese women are making their presence felt in the sex trade