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SCMP Reporter

With the Olympic Games less than two months away, Beijing is on high alert against international criminal groups flooding the city with foreign prostitutes, state media reports.
Groups specialising in  human-trafficking had seen the Olympics as a gold mine, reported the International Herald Leader, a  newspaper sponsored by Xinhua.
'They're a hidden force and posing a great hazard to the Games,' it said.
The 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2000 Sydney Games were both marked by massive influxes of prostitutes, it added.
Viewing the Olympics as a boom time for their business, criminal groups have come up with a variety of ways to send foreign prostitutes to the mainland.
Some prostitutes entered the country  on work permits,  some on tourist visas and others as members of artistic performance groups, the paper said.The criminal groups would even resort to smuggling prostitutes  across the border if  security  was tightened, it reported.
Russia was probably the leading  source country for foreign prostitution on the mainland, the paper said, quoting lawyer Liu Wenyan,  who wrote  the book Crime and Punishment - the Banning of Prostitution in China.
The importing of prostitutes from other neighbouring countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, and eastern European countries, had also been rising, he said.
An  operation to clear the capital and  other cities hosting Olympic events, such as Shenyang  and Qingdao , of prostitutes began in earnest six months ago.
The main targets  include pubs and nightclubs, hair salons and karaoke parlours, commonly used as fronts for prostitution.
The  campaign has recently been stepped up.  This month, the Beijing Olympics organising committee issued a nine-page document entitled 'A guide to Chinese law for foreigners coming to, leaving or staying in China during the Olympics'.
Posted on the organisers' official website, the guide covers a wide range of issues concerning foreign athletes, officials, reporters and tourists, including entry and exit information, tourism and accommodation.
Those considered  likely to be involved in  prostitution services, such as smugglers, drug traffickers and people with 'mental diseases' or contagious diseases such as venereal diseases, or those thought  likely to carry out activities harming state security, were banned, the guide said.



Beijing steps up its campaign against foreign prostitutes