| Yes, prostitution is legal in HK (as in many countries) but running a brothel isn't. There is however a fairly well-defined arrangement which the police allow to exist here in HK where the prostitutes are employed as "dancers" in the bars and the punters are charged very large amounts of money for drinks after which the mama-san (brothel manager) will allow the girls to leave with the punter.
This was recently illustrated in the case of the two guys who died of drug overdoses in the Grand Hyatt - on the witness stand the brothel manager managed to keep a straight face (and no lawyer seemed inclined to dig) when describing how the guys had earlier that evening been charged about HK$8000 for about 4 shots of whisky in his brothel.
There's a whole heap of people involved in the trafficking of the girls into this trade - occasionally some of the smaller fry are nabbed and put away for a while, but the big investors seem to be beyond the reach of the law somehow. |