Major cities crack down on sex trade
- Source: Global Times
- [01:58 June 08 2010]
- Comments
Police raided Heaven Earth Club which provided obscene shows and were believed to be fronts for prostitution.
By Song Shengxia and Fu Wen
Following the high-profile shutdown of an infamous nightclub in Beijing last month, police in major cities across China launched a new round of crackdowns on entertainment venues connected with the sex industry over the weekend.
In a surprise move, police in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, closed three luxurious nightclubs in the city Sunday morning, the Nanjing-based Modern Express reported Monday.
In what the local police called part of a "security campaign" in the summer, eleven people were detained and 18 others received punishment after a four-hour surprise raid Saturday night of venues suspected of providing sex services.
Mingshang Baolijin Nightclub, the so-called safest entertainment venue in Nanjing, was among those raided by the police. More than a hundred people were taken away from the nightclub for questioning.
At the gate of Mingshang, the most luxurious nightclub in the city, a three-meter-high billboard advertises the recruit-ment of xiaojie (mistresses) year-round. According to residents living close to the nightclub, the owner of the nightclub is a businessman from Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province.
A patron who declined to be named told the newspaper that all the xiaojie were classified as "princesses" and "beauties." No matter what they were branded, all of them were taken to private rooms for clients to choose from.
The "princesses" would be paid at least 200 yuan ($29) for their escort services and the "beauties" at least 300 yuan.
"Princesses" are normally attendants directly managed by nightclubs who are responsible for serving liquor, ordering music and meals for clients. "Beauties" escort clients to drink and dance and some provide sexual services, the patron said.
Clients would be charged 800 yuan for taking a xiaojie home and between 1,000 and 1,500 yuan to stay overnight with a xiaojie at the club.
According to the patron, there are a total of 52 private rooms and 100 xiaojie work at the nightclub.
Meanwhile, at 3 am on Sunday, police in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, stormed Gege KTV, a prominent nightclub in the city. A total of 600 people were taken away. After a preliminary investigation, five people were detained on suspicion of drug-related activities.
According to local laws, entertainment venues in Guangzhou cannot remain open after 2 am. However, the club was still open at around 3 am Sunday. The club was closed down immediately after the raid.
The crackdown on nightclubs in the two cities provoked memories of a shutdown of a prominent nightclub in Beijing last month. Passion Club, also known as Tianshang Renjian ("paradise"), has been shut down for six months, the maximum penalty for entertainment venues that provide escort services, according to local police.
The crackdown came as Beijing's new police chief, Fu Zhenghua, vowed to clean up the sex industry in the city. Since last month, Beijing police have raided thousands of entertainment venues, closed down 35 venues and detained 1,132 people, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
Following Beijing's campaign, Carnival, Nanjing's largest nightclub, closed its doors. Despite a manager at the club saying the club had closed for renovation work, speculation has mounted that the closedown is related to Beijing's recent crackdown.
The government has also stepped up efforts since January to crack down on online pornography. As part of the anti- pornography campaign, authorities had shut down 1,250 websites and deleted more than 3.2 million items of online information alleged to contain porn and vulgar content by the end of last year.
