Dongguan gets back to business after sex raid

Eighty percent of entertainment venues in Dongguan, south China's Guangdong province, have reopened five months after police raided the city's underground baths, massage parlors and backstreet brothels in an effort to crack down on rampant prostitution in the so-called Sin City, reported xkb.com.cn, a Guangzhou-based news website, on July 30.

Guangdong police launched a several-month crackdown on sex industry across the province in February after China Central Television uncovered the flourishing sex trade in Dongguan, the entertainment hub of the Pearl River Delta region.

Police apprehended 700 suspects, punished 1,552 people involved in organizing and operating prostitution and investigated 811 prostitution cases.

According to Li Dehe, a police officer from Dongguan public security bureau, 1,134 entertainment venues, among them sauna houses, karaoke bars and foot spa centers, have gone back to business in the city also known as "world shop" for its booming manufacturing industry.

Although the crackdown has dealt a heavy blow to Dongguan's sex trade, many of those "sex workers" are still providing sexual services as "foot massage technician" with some of them using social networking service WeChat to attract "customers", according to sources from local police.

"We will have a zero-tolerance attitude toward prostitution," said Li.