Women are seated during a police crackdown on prostitution in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, Sept. 12, 2012. (Photo : REUTERS)
A report by a Tianjin-based NGO revealed that some sex workers are attracted to the industry due the postive impact on their lives such as better income and the relationships they create with their clients.
According to the NGO Xin'ai Female Sex Workers' Home, a female sex worker said that her work has given her an insight into men's respect and tenderness for women.
The sex worker shared that when she first heard a man call her "babe," she was really touched.
Another sex worker named Xiao Qi (pseudonym) said that her job led her to an "honest, gentle" client from Henan Province in 2010.
"He treated me very well. Staying together with him, I felt I was cherished and was very grateful for having met such a good lover," Xiao quipped.
Lanlan (pseudonym), the NGO's founder and a former sex worker, clarified that not all female sex workers are victims of coercion that need to be rescued.
However, Lanlan noted that sex workers usually lack support from their families and that they were either divorced or had to provide for their families.
The report also noted that while a number of them gained positive insights about their work, a lot of them have to stay in the industry due to their poor educational background, lack of professional training and government benefits.
For the report, the NGO interviewed 21 sex workers whose target clients were low-income or migrant workers and charge between 30 yuan ($4.80) and 100 yuan for each service.
The report was meant to investigate the reasons why rural women born in the 1970s became sex workers, what changes their work has brought and what factors motivated them to remain as sex workers.
