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Women encouraged to come to WA to work as "masseurs"

EXCLUSIVE Gary Adshead, The West AustralianAugust 20, 2011, 3:00 am

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A prostitution racket operating between Perth and Hong Kong is flourishing under the cover of temporary visas promoted by the Australian and Chinese governments.
Women aged between 18 and 30 are being encouraged via websites, seminars and pamphlets in Hong Kong to take one-year "working holidays" to WA.
But middle-men are exploiting the 417 visa system by recruiting many of the young women as "masseurs" for Perth's sex industry.
An investigation by a Hong Kong-based magazine recently sent an undercover reporter to Perth to expose how the young women are lured into prostitution by the promise of more than $6000 per month (HK$50,000) tax free.
The Department of Immigration said people on working holiday visas must only accept "lawful employment".
"The primary focus of the visas isn't work," a spokeswoman said. "They are to allow for cultural exchange and bring closer ties between countries - it's a reciprocal agreement."
After responding to a "recruitment poster" online, the Hong Kong reporter spent almost a week at a massage business located in a medical centre in the commercial heart of an eastern Perth suburb.
She gathered evidence to show that the business allegedly operated as a brothel and claimed women were encouraged to offer "extra services" to earn more money and tips, but they stopped short of having intercourse.
The Weekend West has confirmed the massage business - owned by an Australian man and Chinese woman who also run another "health salon" - is currently being investigated by police and a local authority.
One 22-year-old student befriended by the reporter arrived in Perth from Hong Kong in March and was spending 12 hours a day, six days a week at the parlour.
She used the name Daisy and referred to the business, registered as a Chinese massage and medicine business, as "the shop".
Her family believed she was studying English and working part-time in retail and restaurants - jobs she found hard to get with poor English and her short-term visa.
"Once they heard that you come on a working holiday they wouldn't take you in since they knew that you would leave in two or three months," Daisy told the reporter. "The other thing is the shop pays cash every day without any tax."
She said Australia was the easiest country for her to enter on a working holiday visa. One agency alone in Hong Kong gets about 50 inquiries a week, mostly from young women.
"When I came to Australia, I was on about making money and enjoying myself on holidays," Daisy said. "Now I have only working, no holidays."
Another student from Hong Kong, who used the name Sasa, said she came to Australia to earn money as a "masseur" but was told that doing "extras" was the only way to make the job worth her while.
"I coach new arrivals from time to time," Sasa told the undercover reporter. "Recently the company employees Hong Kong girls on short visa stay.
"As they are new to the job, I teach them my experience."
The "working" names of the women spoken to by the reporter at the massage business are mentioned on a sex industry website forum used by men to compare services around Perth.
"Have just been to … (the massage business)," one man said on the forum. "Had Sasa - top service."
But the co-owner of the business, a 42-year-old woman called Cindy, told The Weekend West yesterday the magazine article was "bulls…" and had caused a lot of trouble.
"I never offer extra service, but men always ask and I can't control all the girls," she said.
Cindy denied telling the undercover reporter before she left Hong Kong that if she came to Perth on a working holiday visa she could earn good money without paying any tax.