[jackbl]

Sex in border areas: P4 unimaginable exploitation
================================================== ==============

In this part, Tuoi Tre continues with Thao, whose virginity was sold for a mere US$950.

On the first day at work, madam Xao ordered Thao to come to a hotel to serve Hac Nhi, a notorious underworld thug in Linh Coong. Thao refused and was badly beaten.

In the end, she had to meet the underworld boss at a hotel. In her words, Hac Nhi is a huge guy who made love to her while drunk and under the influence of drugs.

Her virginity was lost, being sold when she was just 16 years old for a mere 6,000 yuans (US$950). Of course, Thao earned nothing from the sale.

The second time, she had to serve another thug who even treated her more roughly.

But her ordeal was not over. Upon arriving at the brothel, A Mai, madam Xao’s husband, raped her before threatening to cut her throats if she ever told anyone about this.

Love dolls

Chu Thi Phuong let us see some scars on her body that she says are the results of torture by her boss. She recalled that she was force-fed to get plump to attract men as she was quite thin. In the mornings, Phuong and her ‘colleagues’ would take turns applying makeup to one another.

Phuong would get up at 6am and be escorted by a pimp to a barber’s shop on a small street in Linh Coong at 7am. Here, lining up a small street are a dozen shops, all offering sexual services. They are all owned by either Chinese or Vietnamese people.

Madam Ho’s has no hair cutting tools apart from four 1m-wide beds in four small rooms covered up by thin boards.

Around four girls line up before each shop and wave to men whenever they pass by. When they check in, madam Ho negotiates the price directly with them and many times, the girls do not know how much they are worth.

The customers would pay the money directly to the boss, and if the women receive any tips, they would be collected back.

Each session lasts around 30 minutes and some girls even have to endure 30 or even 40 sessions per day. When Phuong bled following her forced abortion days earlier, her customers scolded her and complained to the boss. Angry, Madam Ho beat her and forced her to continue serving other clients.

She was only allowed several days’ rest after catching a high fever, Phuong told Tuoi Tre.

The rule is that a girl is deemed to have paid all debts, i.e be free after working for 15-18 months. But sometimes, they are sold before the time is up, and thus have to work for a different boss from the beginning.

Who are the pimps?

Born in 1984, madam Van is a notorious brothel owner hailing from Bac Ninh province in Vietnam. Around 10 years ago, she was a victim, being sold to China via Lang Son province. After drifting back and forth on many brothels across the border, Van dated and married the brother of her buyer in Zhanjiang city, Guangdong province.

Then, from being an unwilling prostitute, Van became a willing human buyer and seller after setting up her own ‘shop’ near her brother-in-law’s.

Her husband in question is not nice and treats her like a prostitute. Once he heaved her up and thrashed her to the ground while Van - his wife - was still pregnant.

Van would source the girls from a 27-year-old handsome guy named Van Giap. Giap was mentioned before in this series, being responsible for seducing and tricking many gullible girls into slavery abroad.

One of Van’s victims is Tran Thi Mo who was bought at the age of 18 for 40,000 yuans ($6,300). Mo recalled a night in May last year when she and 10 others were stuffed into a small apartment on the third floor in Guangdong, to be paraded in front of Chinese and Vietnamese pimps who selected, negotiated and bought them.

This apartment was sometimes used to house hundreds of trafficked girls.
When Mo set foot in madam Van’s brothel, Van was pregnant and had a 4-year-old daughter but she was very cruel. The first time Mo refused to take clients, Van beat her, causing her nose to spill blood.

She even threatened to kill Mo if she continued to resist. As Mo knows, there are some girls who mysteriously vanished and were never seen again.

Van has an evil cousin who also operates a brothel in Zhanjiang. The two are notorious for beating their women black and blue and forcing them to tell clients that they accidentally fell down the stairs to dispel suspicions.

To be continued............