Letters to the Editor, February 20, 2014

The recent article about the crackdown on prostitution in Dongguan ("World's oldest profession still one of its most honest", February 15) seemed to treat prostitution as a matter of economics, inevitability and necessity, and even attempted to give it some virtuosity as being honest.

However, the stark nature of this "profession" was more clearly portrayed in the Sunday Morning Post article ("HK police fear influx after Dongguan vice raids", February 16) pointing to the associated vices of narcotics, money laundering and triad protection that always accompanies it.

There is one further ugly side to this profession which was not mentioned: that is sex-trafficking. Prostitution is a breeding ground for sex-trafficking. In China and parts of Southeast Asia, women, young girls, minors and children often fall prey to the deceptions and enticements of well-organised gangs of traffickers who will ruthlessly exploit these unfortunate victims and subject them to sexual slavery.

The process is subtle, well-rehearsed and eventually brutal, resulting in broken and willing slaves who have developed a dependency on their pimps.

We have to understand that trafficking has three faces. It is big business, organised crime and human exploitation.

While we may recognise and righteously denounce the first two, the third face of human exploitation is harder to recognise because prostitutes are taught to be great actors. Their livelihood depends on that smiling, seductive, compliant demeanour.