Child sex abuse, compensated dating: Christmas trends Hong Kong would rather ignore
- Police and social workers say compensated dating is nothing more than a euphemism for prostitution – often involving minors. And it hits a height in the holidays, when some are desperate for money and others for company
It is a typical picture of modern dating in Hong Kong; they meet on the internet, head to the movies and then to dinner. The small talk begins, the drinks flow and laughter follows. She is petite, young and pretty; he is older, more affluent, and happy to shower her with gifts.
But there is a twist to this date: the woman (often still a girl) is being paid up to HK$1,000 an hour for her company. And if they wake up together tomorrow morning she can expect a bonus payment.
Yet this is not prostitution – not, at least, in the minds of the two people involved. Welcome to the legally shady world of “compensated dating”, an offshoot of internet dating that criminologists say peaks in Hong Kong this time of year, as the holiday period fuels loneliness in some troubled souls and a desperate need for cash in others.
To many young and innocent minds, compensated dating and its more contemporary offshoot – part-time girlfriends and part-time boyfriends - is little more than money in return for company, at most a modern twist on the old concept of the sugar daddy. But to more sceptical eyes – Hong Kong police, social workers and academics among them – it is nothing less than prostitution and a gateway to child abuse. And they warn compensated dating – along with all its associated vices – is on the rise, fuelled by social media, just as government funding to tackle the issue is in short supply.
EASY MONEY
Among the greatest challenges facing social workers is teenage practitioners being in denial about the nature of compensated dating, with even those who offer sexual services often unwilling to recognise it as a form of prostitution.
At one end of the scale are girls like Momo, a 15-year-old Hongkonger still in high school, who says she sells dates to pay off shopping debts, and sees nothing wrong in what she does. She promotes her services on social media using a photo of young girls captioned “SOO YOUNG”, but is keen to emphasise her services are strictly non-sexual. Still, she admits that she’s “scared people will discover what I’m doing” and limits her dates to Mong Kok or Yau Ma Tei during school hours to ensure she is seen by neither friends nor family. She makes HK$350 an hour for a shopping date and an extra HK$50 per hug.
