Chinese man jailed for pimping teen in Singapore

Chinese man jailed for pimping teen in Singapore

SINGAPORE - A Singapore court Thursday sentenced a Chinese pimp to six years in prison for forcing an underage compatriot to work as a prostitute under abusive conditions in the city-state.

Tang Huisheng, 37, had pleaded guilty to multiple charges after bringing the 17-year-old girl from China's southern city of Zhuhai in May and living off her earnings as a sex worker.

Prostitution is legal in Singapore but pimping is banned and any man who pays for sex with a woman below 18 can be jailed or fined. A total of 24 men, including five Chinese nationals, have been charged after paying for the girl's services.

District Judge Shaiffudin Saruwan said Tang's "depravity, callousness and outright cruelty" were viewed with "abhorrence".

"He subjected the minor to extreme sexual, physical and mental abuses," he said, noting that the girl was forced to service a "mind-numbing" average of 10 clients a day over a 15-day period.

"This to me is very unfair!" Tang yelled in Mandarin, as he was led away by prison guards.

According to court documents, Tang took away all of her earnings and lost heavily at a casino in Singapore.

Before arriving in Singapore, Tang had drugged the girl with methamphetamine and forced her to have sex with him multiple times, according to the documents.

She had initially gone to him looking for a gaming industry job in Macau which borders Zhuhai.

The Straits Times newspaper said 17 men who paid for her services have been jailed so far.

The case follows another underage prostitution scandal in Singapore.

Last year 51 local and foreign men including a Swiss ex-banker, Singaporean civil servants and uniformed officers were charged with having sex with a 17-year-old call girl in 2010 and 2011. Most have served jail terms.

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Background story from Monday's hearing:
(First published in TNP)

Pimp: Underage prostitute was my lover

The underage prostitute was his lover and she initiated sex first.

She is a bold person because she smokes and has a tattoo. There is no way she could have jumped out of a window to escape from his apartment because it has no windows.

These were some of the startling claims that pimp Tang Huisheng made during the second part of a special hearing on Monday.

The hearing was called because Tang, 37, disputed certain details in the statement of facts despite pleading guilty to four charges earlier, including bringing the 17-year-old here for prostitution and living off her immoral earnings.

The girl he was referring to is a native of China's Shandong province that he had forced into prostitution.

Her heartrending story emerged last month when 24 men were charged with paying for sex with a minor.

The girl was tricked into meeting Tang, who she thought could help her get a job to pay off her late father's medical bills.

Instead, Tang allegedly drugged the girl and forced her to become his sex slave before bringing her here to be a prostitute.

He and his sister, Tang Huiying, also allegedly beat her regularly.

But Tang is contesting certain facts of the case, including feeding the girl Ice (the street name for methamphetamine) before having sex with her and repeatedly beating her.

In a dramatic session in which tempers flared, Tang constantly rambled on, prompting District Judge Shaiffudin Saruwan to constantly remind him to "answer the question".

During cross-examination by Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Stella Tan, Tang claimed he and the girl were lovers and that he had provided for her the few months that she stayed with him.

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'SHE ASKED FOR SEX'

He denied drugging her.

He added that the girl was the one who asked for sex and that he was willing to be hanged if he were lying.

"I'm a human being, not a beast. I have never forced anyone to do anything," he said.

In response, Judge Shaiffudin said several times there was no need to be so drastic, and that simply answering the prosecutor's question was sufficient.

When DPP Tan suggested to Tang that he coerced her into coming here by threatening to harm her family, Tang said there will be phone records of the event.

He even challenged her to produce the evidence.

At one point, Tang even claimed the minor told him she had two birthdates because the registry in China had got the original date wrong.

Presented with a copy of her travel documents, he then said he could not see the words clearly because of bad eyesight.

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From China to Geylang: How she was drugged, raped and beaten

Before she became the prey of lustful men who prowl the lorongs of Geylang, the young girl from China underwent a hellish initiation of drugs, rape and beatings to turn her into a prostitute.

In sentencing three Singaporean men to 11 weeks' jail each for having commercial sex with the underage prostitute in September, District Judge Low Wee Ping repeatedly called the facts of the case "heartbreaking" and "horrific".

The three were among 24 men accused of having paid sex with her. More men are expected to face similar charges.

Explaining why the law takes a serious view of such offences, he told one of the accused, Low Kia How, 50, that by being at the end of the supply chain, "you are a consumer of what we call international trafficking of a minor for prostitution".

This is the heart-rending story of the girl's ordeal that emerged in the September trial:

Stuck with father's debts

When her father died from cancer in October 2011, he had racked up about 100,000 yuan (S$20,000) in loans from relatives and illegal moneylenders for his medical treatment.

Left to repay the debts, her mother became an odd job labourer, earning 3,000 yuan a month while the girl made about 1,000 yuan washing hair in a salon in her hometown in Shandong, China.

They could barely make ends meet, so the girl's employer Yi Hui suggested that she go to Macau to work in a casino.

In January this year, she went to Macau with Yi Hui, who introduced her to Tang Huiying.

When she found out the girl was only 17, she said she was too young to work in a casino, but she could solicit for VIP customers outside the casinos and earn a commission by helping the VIPs cash in money in exchange for chips

But first she would need to go to nearby Zhuhai on the mainland to learn how to solicit for customers from Tang's brother.

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Sex slave

When the girl met Tang Huisheng, she told him she was 17. He drugged her with methamphetamine (Ice) and had sex with her while she was still in a stupor.

She became his sex slave. He would ask her for sex every few days. If she refused, he would beat her.

He continued to give her Ice. She was terrified of him.

He subsequently told her he would be taking her to Singapore to work as a prostitute so she could earn more money, adding he would be her pimp.

The girl found out he had been a pimp for many years. She refused and begged him to let her return home to her mother.

Instead, he locked her up in a room.

Jumped from 5th storey

After more than a week of confinement, she tried to escape by jumping out of the fifth-storey room.

She injured her back and legs and was caught by Tang. To punish her, he hit her on the back and chest while his sister hit her head.

Tang found out her hometown address by checking her passport. He then threatened that he would cause her mother trouble if she tried to escape again.

He confiscated her money, China identity card and mobile phone. He then bought air tickets to Singapore, promising to let her go home if she worked for two months as a prostitute here.

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Caught for prostitution here

After they arrived here on May 16, Tang took her to Geylang and liaised with a local pimp known as Pang Pang.

She was told to stand around Geylang to get customers. Tang would stand near her in case she needed help. He also acted as lookout and helped her solicit for customers.

At the end of each day, he would take away all the money she made from prostituting herself.

She worked in Geylang from May 18 to June 1, when she was arrested at about 5.10pm on the suspicion that she had been providing commercial sex while being below the age of 18.


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