Video is wrong in calling underage prostitution ‘sex industry’, say police
A video documentary showing the reality of underage prostitution in Kuala Lumpur is "lopsided" as Malaysia does not have a sex "industry", police told The Star Online today.
The Star's news portal quoted the Secret Societies, Gambling and Vice Division principal assistant director SAC Datuk Roslee Chik as saying that Malaysia's sex trade was "not that big".
"Sex is not an industry in Malaysia, the term 'sex activities' is more accurate," he was reported saying.
He told the portal that the word "industry" implied that the profits derived from prostitution in Malaysia was as big as in Thailand, where prostitution is legal.
Roslee was commenting on the video, titled Trapped - The underage sex industry in Malaysia" by two journalists, Mahi Ramakrishnan and Rian Maelzer who spent two years researching and shooting the video.
Mahi, in an interview with The Malaysian Insider about the video, said she was shocked to discover that teenaged prostitution existed in Malaysia.
The girls she had interviewed were foreign and some said they had been tricked into being sex workers and were being held against their will.
"I never knew that such a thing existed in Malaysia. I mean, everyone knows that this happens in Thailand but I really had no idea that the underage sex trade was alive and well here," she told The Malaysian Insider.
"You hardly hear about it and no one really addresses it. It is really under-reported."
Roslee told The Star Online that it was wrong to use the term "sex industry".
"In Malaysia, the existence of prostitution is undeniable - just like in other countries. But the level of enforcement minimises these activities."
He also emphasised that the outlets featured in the video were filmed in 2012 and all of them have since been closed down.
Roslee also said that claims by children's rights activist Dr Hartini Zainuddin of forged documents should have been brought to the police.
Hartini, who is interviewed in the video, said that some of the girls had forged documents which showed that they were over the age of 18.
Roslee said such evidence should be brought to the police as they could not act on hearsay. – September 12, 2014.
