http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080122/tap-lifestyle-singapore-crime-sex-
gambli-06f3cb7.html
More than 5,000 foreign sex workers caught in Singapore:
minister
AFP - Tuesday, January 22SINGAPORE (AFP) - - Singapore arrested
more than 5,000 foreign prostitutes last year but it is unrealistic
to expect vice to be eliminated, the Home Affairs Minister has told
parliament.
ADVERTISEMENT
Wong Kan Seng was responding to a question from an MP about efforts
to curb "rampant gambling and prostitution" in Singapore's
red-light Geylang district.
"The vice situation in Singapore is under control," Wong said in a
written response released Tuesday.
He said police across the city-state last year conducted 950
vice-related operations, up from 890 the previous year. They
arrested 5,400 foreign sex workers, a 25 percent increase over
2006, he said.
Despite its reputation as a straight-laced society, prostitution is
legal in Singapore, where licensed brothels operate in designated
areas such as Geylang. Pimping and public solicitation are
illegal.
Foreign women working voluntarily in the sex trade cannot be
arrested unless they are caught offering their services out in the
street or violate immigration and other laws.
Wong, who is also a deputy prime minister, said installation of
closed-circuit television cameras in Geylang has helped deter
solicitation.
He said daily police operations to target gambling in the back
alleys of Geylang led to 280 arrests last year and an improvement
in the situation.
"Illegal gambling in Geylang is not rampant," Wong said.
"But I should add that it is not realistic to expect vice to be
totally eliminated," he said, particularly as the city-state seeks
to promote tourism.
"Among those who come, there will be a very small number who enter
under the pretext of social visits but engage in vice activities.
This is the reality which Singaporeans should face up to."
Email StoryIM StoryPrintable ViewBlog This Recommend this
article
Average (3 votes)Recommend it: Most Recommended Stories »
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Related Articles
I think the government is condone such activites esp with budget
airlines...make it so cheap esp for PRC women to earn a living
indulging in flesh trade-corrupting our society and breaking up
families,among the many social ills.I rrecalled MM Lee also ever
mentioned in one of his interviews he tolerated the vice activities
esp for the coolies nad labourers who toiled and worked diligently
in the 1960s but certainly not drugs...
Perhaps many say when there is demand there is supply..hence not
easy to wipe out prostitution completely..not only prostitution in
Geylang buy contraband cigarettes and gambling are rampant
there.Even loan sharks and gangsters are common sights 
