Sex workers in Hong Kong speak. Following are accounts given by sex workers and a discussion which followed the conference in Zhuhai in January.

Andy

I am a sex worker from Hong Kong. My name is Andy. I want to talk about how I became involved in the business and what my work is. My two colleagues will tell you about what they felt, while I will talk about what I was doing right after I entered the business.

I began the business as an escort girl. I would wait in the place until I received a call from a man, then I would go to some place, such as an hotel. All the girls used to wait in the same place.

After being an escort girl for a while, she started work at a fish ball stall [illegal street cafe], these are very common places in Hong Kong to eat cheaply, except the stall she worked at was more like a mini-night club. There is a table and sofas around the table. So you accompany the guests, talking.

There are different kinds of service, the first is where you sit and talk only. The second is called triple service, where the guest can touch your body only. The double or triple service refers not to the length of time, but the amount of money the guest pays. The third service is called garden hour. You can have sex right in the place.

The length of time the guest spends with me determines how much he will pay.

Then after the fish ball stall, I transferred to a night club. There are two kinds in Hong Kong.

One is called dark club the other is called light club. The dark club is really dark, there are no lights, you can't even see your own fingers. After a girl goes to sit next to a guest, the money she receives is determined by the number of songs. When each song is finished, the sex worker receives a ticket, which becomes money later on. In the light club, it is more like a normal night club, with entertainment for the guests.

After the night club, I went to work on the streets.

Dodo

My name is Dodo I am a sex worker. I have been in the business for ten years.

I entered the business because my marriage failed. At first I wanted to work in a night club to accompany guests for dancing. As a tourist you can go to the two kinds of club. In a dark club, the guest can perform immoral behaviour because no one can see what he is doing. In a bright club, this business can be negotiated, and then they go outside to complete the transaction.

I preferred working in a bright club I enjoyed more freedom and I could choose the guests. Also most of the customers at the bright club are better customers. The customers have higher social status.

A bright club is like a high class night club they charge higher, so the customers have more money, that means better customers.

There are bad customers, but because they are in this kind of place, they must behave better.

The insecurity in this job is that you only know if the customer is good or bad when you leave the club. The worst guest is pathetic and is rude or violent to you. So in the bright club, you depend on your experience to judge whether you should go alone with the guests.

For the health condition, it is not good to work in the club, because you must drink a lot with the guests. You will usually get drunk, and will develop stomach pains and stomach illness. You cannot avoid alcohol as it is necessary to your work. After I got the stomach ache, I stopped working for a while.

Later I had to start work as a sex worker again just to make a living. There is a big difference this time in my work as a street girl. Street girls stand on the street, expose yourself and negotiate the business by yourself directly. In this work you pay off your self respect. I say this because once you are on the street, the people around come around and harass you and touch you and look down on you. You have no self respect at all. Anybody can come and touch you. You have no choice of customers. Most street workers are desperate for money, that is why you don't choose guests - they come and you serve.

As a street girl, life is much more stressful as you are exposed to many dangers. The police will come to harass you. The customers do not behave themselves, some of them even rob you after having sex. Also the gangsters come to threaten you and ask you for so-called protection fee. They say you give them money and they will protect you. But actually if you don't give them money, they will disturb your work. So you have to give them money to satisfy and pacify them.

The worst worry is a guest with a sexual disease. This means you cannot do the business. On the streets you don't have a Madam to manage you like working in the club. So you depend entirely on yourself. Your working place is the entrance to a building or some part of the street. So the neighbours don't welcome you, they discriminate against you, and try to drive you away. Although you feel helpless, you have to face all the problems that arise. Because of the economic depression, the income goes lower and lower, and the customers bargain harder and harder for a low price.

Under the influence of the police and the mass media the society more and more think sex work is very negative and very worse, and this affects the business. You should ask yourself the question, "Do you think it is so bad to be a sex worker?"

If there were no sex workers, how would men's lives be? Would there be more sexual crime in society? Maybe there would be more sexual victims, and society should consider it seriously. So society should set up a red light district so that sex workers can work safely and without police harassment, this maybe is a better solution.

We also need to promote what is the effect of sex workers upon men's lives. Also we are only selling our own bodies, we are not stealing or lawbreaking, so we should be accepted.

We need fair treatment from society. I understand that it is difficult to change public attitudes towards our business. At least we need more understanding and concern from society.

Ah Shan

My name is Ah Shan. I am a sex worker in a one girl flat. This means one sex worker has a flat, and uses advertisements in the newspaper to attract customers who visit her in the flat. The negotiation is done on the doorstep face to face. Once this is decided, they will have the business in the flat. In some cases, the customer just arrives, looks at you and leaves - no business.

The problem of working in a one girl flat is that you are always alone, so you risk robbery, rape or non-payment.

After a crime has been committed against me, if I report it to the police, they will do nothing.

The police try to use different methods to stop us working in one girl flats. Legally in Hong Kong, we do not need a licence to work in a one girl flat. But the police come to harass me saying they want to check the licence, but it is just an excuse to disturb my business.

The police force the owner of the flat, because according to Hong Kong law, it is illegal to rent flats for the sex trade. So the police will use this law to force the owner not to rent the flat to a sex worker.

When the police stand at the entrance of my building, customers will not dare to visit, and so they stop my business.

During menstruation, I rest for a few days. During this time, I lend my flat to another sex worker. But the police come to arrest me, saying that my income depends on the sex work of another girl which is illegal.

The purpose of legal and illegal measures by the police is the same - to stop our business.

The cost of working a one girl flat is to pay H K$7,000 each month for rent and HK$3,000 for the newspaper adverts. So it costs at least HK$10,000 per month to maintain the business.

In December, I received only 77 guests, which left me with a deficit of HK$3,000.

According to Hong Kong law, one girl flats are not illegal so we do not need a licence, but that doesn't stop the police from coming to harass us. They enter our flats without a permit.

If we do not co-operate with the police, they stand in front of the building and frighten customers away, so they force us to co-operate.

I started sex work because my marriage failed, and I have two children and a sick father to look after. I couldn't find another job, so I started as a sex worker.