History
Population census in 1865 and 1866 recorded 81 and 134 "Chinese brothel keepers". From 1879 to 1932, prostitution was legal and regulated, and prostitutes were required to register for licenses, pay tax, and have regular health examination. Prostitution boomed in the districts of Sai Ying Pun, Wan Chai, Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei. In 1930 Hong Kong, with a population of 1.6 million, boasted 200 legal brothels with over 7,000 licensed prostitutes. But in 1932, the Hong Kong government issued a ban on prostitution and three years later licensed prostitution ended. From that time on, prostitution was permitted within strict limits while prohibiting a whole host of activities surrounding prostitution, such as soliciting for sex and living off "immoral earnings" (working as a pimp). It has also attracted prostitutes from other countries. Most of them have come from Southeast Asia, and even from Europe and the United States.
Although organised prostitution is illegal, the industry had always depended on gangsters (triads) to recruit economically disadvantaged women who otherwise would never enter the profession voluntarily. Until the 1980s, most Hong Kong underground sex establishments were run by gangsters. During the 1990s, however, Hong Kong saw a massive shift in the form of prostitution. There was an influx of "northern girls" (Chinese: 北姑) from mainland China who worked as prostitutes illegally in Hong Kong on their short tourist visas; local voluntary prostitutes also increased dramatically in number. As a result, gangsters could no longer make a profit by coercion and their controlling power declined.
Read more about this topic: Prostitution In Hong Kong
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)