Data Base

A Survey on Hong Kong Police's Attitudes towards Female Sex Workers (Survey Report) (2005)

Over the past years, Action for REACH OUT (AFRO) has been receiving informal complaints from sex workers, complaining that they experienced impolite and/or unreasonable treatment, during their encounters with Hong Kong Police when they are working or upon arrest/questioning. These include police officers' using foul language and/or physical conflicts, not allowing them to use mobile phone to call family, friends or lawyers for help when they are arrested, not allowing them to read the statement written by the police officers for them, and forcing them to sign statements that they do not agree to.

However, even in such occasions, sex workers seldom choose to approach Complaint Against Police Office to file a complaint. Sex workers are afraid that it may then reveal their work identities, which very probably will lead to discrimination against them since the sexual service industry is usually treated "differently" by mainstream society. In addition, the unpleasant, impolite or even unreasonable and unfair treatments are also one of the reasons why sex workers lose confidence with the police. Therefore they doubt very much whether it is useful to file such a complaint. Moreover, some sex workers are also worried that filing complaint against certain police officers also implies future "revenge" by the police and "targeted action"against sex workers, and they therefore hesitate to do so. As for those who come from Mainland China with visas and work illegally in Hong Kong, they simply dare not complain against anyone or anything that happens to them in Hong Kong, needless to mention a police officer and/or unfair or unreasonable treatment by him.

Seeing this, AFRO launched "A survey on Hong Kong Police's Attitudes towards Female Sex Workers" (from mid-March to late June in 2005), aiming to collect information and opinions from sex workers who dare not file a formal complaint nor report the problems facing them to the public. This survey is to enhance understanding on the interaction between sex workers and the Hong Kong police, and to further investigate how the police treat sex workers and whether/what kind of unreasonable/unfair treatment exist. We hope that the systematic collection and analysis of data can help reflect the precise picture of problems now facing sex workers in Hong Kong. We look forward to sharing the survey result with the Hong Kong police as well as follow-up actions by the police to accordingly improve the current situation. Moreover, we also hope that this survey can enhance understanding and further arouse the 2 concern of the public about problems facing sex workers in Hong Kong...... Click here to download the full report