Policing One-woman Brothels in Hong Kong: Alternative Strategies

Abstract

'One-woman brothels' are actually small flats in residential buildings in Hong Kong, each with a single female sex worker working in it. Although there is no law that specifically stipulates that prostitution is illegal in Hong Kong, virtually every activity connected with prostitution is regarded as an offence. Therefore, the Hong Kong Police are able to use relevant laws to tackle street sex workers, call-girl services, and different vice establishments such as villas (guest houses), massage parlours, nightclubs and karaoke bars which directly or indirectly provide sex services to their customers. Interesting enough, a lone sex worker who sells her body for money inside an apartment (one-woman brothel) is not technically committing any offences.

Faced with immense pressure from the community, the police may adopt alternative strategies to reduce the number of one-woman brothels and keep them low profile in some black spot areas. The alternative strategies include 'visiting sex workers', 'harassing clients', 'pressuring door caretakers' and 'advising landlords'. This research finds that the two most effective ways to combat one-woman brothels are visiting sex workers and harassing clients. However, the price is that the police need to invest their manpower heavily on the above operations. In addition, these two strategies may create 'displacement effect'. The sex workers may move to another area to continue their business. The data of this research mainly derive from local studies on this topic, official documents, media reports, a popular one-woman brothel website, field observations and interviews with 12 police officers who had experiences in dealing with one-woman brothels.