Hong Kong women and children are victims of sex trafficking within the region.[1] A lot of the prostitutes in Hong Kong are fromMainland China. Researchers and sources within the industry suggest many of them are trafficked.[7][8] Traffickers recruit victims fromThailand,[9] thePhilippines, Mainland China, and countries inSouth America using false promises of lucrative employment and force them into commercial sex. Some foreign victims entered Hong Kong on two-week tourist visas, as part of a circuit of major cities in the region used by traffickers, includingBangkok andTaipei, and were coerced into commercial sex through debt-based coercion. Some employment agencies reportedly hired foreign domestic workers under false pretences and forced them into commercial sex. Women fromEastern Europe,Africa, andSoutheast Asia are also sex trafficked into Hong Kong.[1]
Triads have been involved in sex trafficking in Hong Kong for many years.[10][11]Thunderbolt 2023, a crackdown on Triads between 12 June and 21 September, resulted in 6,400. Some of these arrests were in connection with sex trafficking.[12] 28 people, with connections to the14K Triads, were arrested in November 2024 in connection with sex trafficking.[13]
NGOs report increasing occurrences of online commercial sex acts. Traffickers use coercive methods, such as threats of reporting victims to police or immigration authorities, withholding of identification documents, and blackmailing victims with threats of online distribution of photographs, to coerce them to engage in online commercial sex acts.[1]
Women from Hong Kong are trafficked intoNorth America and theUK for commercial sex.[1][14]
Who takes part in bringing another person into, or taking a person out of, Hong Kong, for the purpose of prostitution, shall be guilty of an offence ….[15]
Section 129(2) adds that the consent a person being trafficked is not a defence.[15]
As the Ordinance only covers cross-border trafficking, domestic victims are not covered.[15]
^Joe Laidler, Karen; Emerton, Robyn; Petersen, Carole (2007). "Trafficking of Mainland Chinese Women into Hong Kong's Sex Industry: Problems of Identification and Response".Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law.8 (2):35–84.doi:10.1163/157181507783877023.hdl:10125/66097.
^Kong, Chu Yiu (2007). "Triad Involvement in the Sex Service Industry in Hong Kong and Its Impacts on Southeast Asia".Investigating the Grey Areas of the Chinese Communities in Southeast Asia:75–90.doi:10.4000/books.irasec.335.ISBN978-974-7709-40-7.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.
