Beijing: Twenty teenage school girls have
been caught offering sexual services for money through online
network in China's commercial hub Shanghai, local prosecutors
said.
Three of the girls have been charged with organising
prostitution and procuring, after they persuaded classmates to
join them and took a commission for helping them contact
customers.
People's Procuratorate of Zhabei District in Shanghai, the
prostitution ring was established in 2009 when the three girls
started offering sex service and looked for more girls to join
them.
The girls ran the business online, asking their customers
whether they needed a young girl "to play with" and arranging
an appointment, usually at hotels late at night, state-run
China Daily reported today.
The girls were caught after a customer reported the theft
of a valuable watch to the local police after an "appointment"
with one of the girls.
Han said that many of the girls joined the ring only to
earn some spending money and did not realise they were
breaking the law.
"I don't want to be a worker like my parents, living a
hard life to earn money," one of the girls told prosecutors.
"I didn't mean to get my friends into trouble. They all
love to do the job because our parents never give us enough
pocket money to spend, but money is needed in every way,"
another girl said.
Huang Hongji, director of the Shanghai Youth Research
Centre, said an increasingly materialized society is changing
teenagers' sense of values by giving them the belief that
money is essential if they want a better quality of life.
"All the teenagers involved in the case are students from
vocational or high schools where they didn't receive enough
moral education, they didn't know that prostitution is not the
right way to make money," Huang said.
There has been a rapid increase in the number of teenage
prostitution cases in cities all over the country in the last
three to five years, the daily said.
"As more parents and schools fail to offer enough sex
education to teenagers, the number of teenagers involved in
prostitution cases has grown," said Qian Yuanchun, a lawyer
who specializes in teenage-related cases at Shanghai Yuanwen
Law Firm.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, November 08, 2011, 15:01