AN UNFOLDING scandal over an
under-age call girl has shaken Singapore’s political and economic elite after
businessmen, civil servants and uniformed officers were charged in the case.
Prostitution is legal in
Singapore, but 48 men ranging in age from their early 20s to late 40s have so
far been charged under a 2008 law making it a crime to pay for sex with a girl
under 18.
Singapore has long been
perceived as a conservative, even prudish, city-state but it has a thriving sex
industry dating back to its beginnings as a key trading port of the then
British empire.
The latest case has shone a
spotlight on its pragmatic approach, which instead of seeking to close down the
sex industry aims to tightly regulate the trade to protect minors and ward off
criminal involvement.
An elementary school
principal who pleaded guilty to engaging the under-aged girl’s services became
the first to be punished when a district court on Friday sentenced him to nine
weeks in jail for the offence.
Among the remaining accused
are five foreigners including Juerg Buergin, a 40-year-old Swiss expatriate who
had worked for banking giant UBS.
The most prominent of the
Singaporeans charged is Howard Shaw, a high-society figure and grandson of
Runme Shaw, co-founder of cinema and property empire Shaw Organisation, which
is also active in charity causes.
The gossip mill went into
overdrive when it was disclosed that Shaw, a 41-year-old with two daughters
from his first marriage, had sex with the teenager just a month before tying
the knot with his second wife, a former beauty contestant still in her 20s.
The two appeared on a recent
cover of high-society magazine Singapore Tatler as the poster couple for an
article on “great romances” among the rich and famous in the city-state.
Singapore websites and
social media are swirling with speculation that more men will be charged even
as the identity of the girl, only 17 when she had dalliances with the accused,
is being concealed by court order.
People have also been
sharing purported pictures and salacious descriptions of the girl, described by
a defence lawyer as a “hardcore prostitute”.
But apart from generating
juicy gossip, the high-profile case has also won the authorities plaudits for
their rigorous handling of the issue.
“This is the first time that
cases of obtaining paid sex from a girl under the age of 18 has been exposed
and enforced on such a large scale,” said rights group the Singapore committee
for UN Women.
Singapore’s legalisation of
the sex trade makes it a “pragmatic” and “unusual” exception in a region where
prostitution thrives but is officially banned, said Reuben Wong, a political
scientist at the National University of Singapore.
The under-age prostitution
scandal was “an embarrassment for Singapore as a society, because it has such a
squeaky clean, puritan image,” but reflected well on the state’s strict laws on
the sex business, he said.
Brothels operate openly in
Singapore in the notorious Geylang red light district, and self-declared
prostitutes are required to undergo health checks.
“We recognise that it is not
possible to eradicate it and forcing it underground will lead to the greater
likelihood of involvement by triads and organised crime, the trafficking of
women, and public health risks,” Ho Peng Kee, then a top official of the
interior ministry, told parliament in 2009.
Wong told AFP: “Prostitution
was legalised to bring this sector under close government control — for
economic, moral, tax reasons…. The main overarching theme is we keep it under
government control.” (AFP)
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