14-year-olds working in 'cyber-brothels'

Girls as young as 14 were found to have been providing sexual services while working as assistants in cybercafes in Mongkok last year, police said after closing two of the shops.

Repeated police raids on the two cybercafes in Shanghai Street showed that female employees had provided sexual services to customers. They were served with six-month closure orders yesterday.

Police said the number of cybercafes providing sex services had mushroomed in Mongkok since 2002. Many employ girls aged under 18.

Officers caught 82 such girls in cybercafes last year, of which 50 were school dropouts and the rest secondary school pupils who worked in vice establishments after school. Of the 82, three had been reported missing by their parents.

The girls were not arrested but were given police warnings. Their parents were ordered to provide their daughters with proper care and supervision, said Acting Chief Inspector Ng Siu-chuen.

He warned that customers caught with underaged girls in brothels faced up to 10 years' imprisonment.