For a year and a half,
Sze was part of a growing social phenomenon among teens in Hong Kong
called "compensated dating," a practice in
which a young woman agrees to go on a date with a man for a
fee. More often than not, the date involves sex.
Sze said she started compensated dating because many of her
classmates at an all-girls school were doing it. She says she became jealous
when she saw the designer clothes, bags and cosmetics they bought
with the money they earned through compensated dating. Sze wanted
the same for herself, so her classmates introduced her
to Internet chat forums where she met male customers.
The practice can have deadly consequences. Last year, a
16-year-old
Hong Kong girl was killed in a gruesome murder after she went to a
24-year-old man's apartment for a compensated date. The man,
Ting Kai-Tai, killed the teenager, dismembered her body and flushed the
remains down the toilet. A jury convicted him of
murder and sentenced him to life in prison.
Sze told CNN she knew a compensated date could go horribly
wrong. She would set ground rules with clients on the phone first. She
charged them $350 for a date and clarified how many times she would
have sex with them.
She said sometimes the customers would stray from the rules,
asking for more sex or refusing to wear a condom.
"Sometimes, I did feel shame. I kept asking myself why I had
to do this kind of thing to make money. But the feeling didn't stay long. I
would relax when I wanted to buy something. I just thought I could
always quit after a short time or whenever I wanted,"
Sze said.
Most girls who engage in compensated dating don't view
themselves as prostitutes, said social worker Chiu Tak-Choi.
"For the girls, they don't think so because they think they
can quit anytime. The girls -- even though they post their details on
the Internet --
they think they can quit. Even if they encounter the guys, if
he is not good-looking, she can quit and say 'I don't do it.' They think they have
a lot of power to control whether they do it or not,
so they think of it very differently from prostitution."
Chiu, the social worker, is currently working with about 20
girls who are trying to leave the world of compensated dating. It is hard to
quantify how big the problem is in Hong Kong because the business is
conducted under the radar, he said.
Chiu believes the problem is getting worse because his
caseload has doubled in the past two years.
Prostitution is illegal in Hong Kong, and legal experts say
that compensated dating is a form of prostitution. "The law prohibits soliciting for
immoral purpose," said Stephen Hung, a criminal litigator
with Pang, Wan & Choi. "When a court looks at sentencing, the greater the age
difference, the more serious it (the sentence) is."
Why do young girls get involved in compensated dating? The
reasons vary from an unstable home life to a desire for material goods, Chiu
said.
One 14-year-old girl told him she started compensated dating
when she lost her cell phone. She said her parents wouldn't buy her a new
one, so she thought she could earn some fast money with paid sex. She
had her eye on an expensive cell phone. When the money from the
first compensated date didn't cover the cost for the new
phone, she went on a second paid date.
Girls involved in compensated dating don't necessarily come
from poor families, Chiu said. They are from all levels of socioeconomic
classes, he said. Improved family communication is one
solution to preventing girls from becoming involved in compensated dating, Chiu
said.
"The family has to do its part. I think caring for children
is very important. Whenever they have problems, they can ask someone for help."
Sze said she was saved by a social worker who stepped in on
her behalf. After a pregnancy scare and a number of unpredictable
customers, Sze said her self-esteem plummeted. The social worker helped
her get back on track.
"She helped me understand that making money respectably is
actually not that hard in Hong Kong. I finally realized that it was wrong to
make money by selling my body. It just wasn't worth it."
Sze now works at a hair salon to earn a living. She has tried
to talk her old friends out of compensated dating, but they are not listening, she
said.
"They felt annoyed when I talked to them
about this. I'm now reluctant to get in touch with them. They just
tell me they're different. Maybe
they have more serious family problems or some other burdens. I know
I can't control their thinking, so I just stopped trying to help them."
Courtesy of
http://edition.cnn.com
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