A single mother, whose own mother is too sick to work, Kat jumped at the chance to earn a high salary but soon after arriving in Hong Kong, the mama-san confiscated her passport and sent her to work in the bar alongside other trafficked women. Without any money, she said she cannot escape or fly home — and besides, her traffickers know where her family lives. The other bar girls are depressed.
Prostitutes try to lure clients with offers of Thai massage on Reclamation Street in the Jordan district of Hong Kong. Many victims do not speak out for fear of being punished by their traffickers, some of them linked to the powerful triad organised crime group.
Others are afraid of being deported home or criminalised for being in the possession of fake papers arranged by their pimps, campaigners say. Last year, the U. The report criticised Hong Kong for not doing more to identify victims of sex and labour trafficking among vulnerable groups such as foreign migrants, domestic workers and women and children in prostitution.
In , the police identified a total of 16 trafficking victims who were foreign women forced into prostitution. Recognising the need for more training, the Immigration Department and Hong Kong Police Force introduced new and revised procedures for identifying potential trafficking victims including a checklist for danger signs.
The list of vulnerable trafficking victims has also been expanded to sex workers, illegal workers and illegal immigrants. Investigating forced prostitution takes a long time with many victims unwilling to come forward as witnesses, she said. One of the Philippine women Santos helped to rescue, Jean, said she was brought to Hong Kong on a two-month tourist visa in by an organised crime group in the Philippines with triad links.
