Police in east China's Zhejiang province have arrested six people suspected of being involved with a ring that recruited middle school girls into prostitution, local police said Monday.
The arrests were made after police in April busted a criminal gang that procured young females, including juvenile students, for prostitution in Yongkang city, said an official from the Yongkang Municipal Public Security Bureau.
The official said the gang had supplied female students to local men since February. A Yongkang legislator surnamed Hu is also suspected of being one of the gang's clients.
Police have arrested six people suspected of procuring and paying for sex with prostitutes, and another three, including Hu, have been placed under police custody for their suspected roles in the case.
An unidentified police source told Xinhua that more than a dozen female students, all under age 18, were involved. But it is not yet clear whether they had been forced into the scheme or acted on their own volition.
Neither is it known whether any of the prostitutes were under age 14. Chinese laws rule that sexual intercourse with females under 14, whether by force or with mutual consent, constitutes rape.
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