Ho Chi Minh City authorities have no policy to gather providers of ‘sensitive services,’ which tend to discreetly run prostitution activities, into designated areas dubbed ‘red-light’ districts, Hua Ngoc Thuan, deputy chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, has said.

The municipal government will instead re-arrange them for better management and will authorize district people’s committees to license and directly look over them in the future, Thuan said late last month at a meeting. 

Thuan’s confirmation was made in response to a question by Major General Phan Anh Minh, deputy director of the city police, that the city authorities should clarify whether specific areas for ‘sensitive services’ would be set up. Minh’s question followed recent suggestions that businesses offering ‘sensitive services’ should be pulled into certain parts in the city for easier control.

“A number of district governments say they do not want such businesses to be located in designated areas, but they want to continue implementing a city policy that restricts the establishment of new ‘sensitive services’ providers,” Minh said.

In response, Thuan said that the city Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism is preparing a plan for the re-arrangement of such providers for better control, and that the city will not increase the number of businesses providing ‘sensitive services.’

Also under the plan, the department will stop granting licenses to such businesses and district governments will take over this work and be directly responsible for the management of these ‘sensitive services’ providers, Thuan said.

The department is collecting feedback on the plan to perfect it before submitting it to the city authorities for approval, possibly in late April, Thuan added.

35,000 ‘sensitive services’ providers

Prostitution now comes in various forms of sexual intercourse and sexual stimulation, according to a report by the city People’s Committee, which specifies that it can be found in brothels, hotels, bars, discotheques, café, barbershops, massage parlors, spas, saunas, and karaoke parlors.

Therefore, these places have been classified as providers of ‘sensitive services,’ which can easily include prostitution activities, the report said.

The city now has about 35,000 such providers, of which 5,000 have yet to obtain a license.

These providers are operating in many districts across the city, so concerned agencies cannot put them under effective control with its modest workforce.

Many providers of ‘sensitive services’ often use complicated tricks to hide their prostitution activities from competent agencies.

District inspectors should pay regular visits to places where ‘sensitive services’ are suspected to be offered and suspend their operations whenever they find the providers fail to meet city conditions, Pham Van Muoi, deputy chairman of the People’s Committee of Binh Tan District, a hot spot of ‘sensitive services,’ suggested.

The city government has repeatedly complained relevant bodies find it hard to battle prostitution when it is so easy to carry out the procedures required for setting up service businesses, Muoi added.