© Anderw Biraj / ReutersSixteen-year-old prostitute Maya waits for a customer inside her small room at Kandapara brothel in Tangail, a northeastern city of Bangladesh, March 5, 2012. An unfolding scandal over an under-age call girl has shaken Singapore's political and economic elite after businessmen, civil servants and uniformed officers were charged in the case.
An unfolding scandal over an under-age call girl has shaken Singapore's political and economic elite after businessmen, civil servants and uniformed officers were charged in the case.
Prostitution is legal in Singapore, but 48 men ranging in age from their early 20s to late 40s have so far been charged under a 2008 law making it a crime to pay for sex with a girl under 18.
Singapore has long been perceived as a conservative, even prudish, city-state but it has a thriving sex industry dating back to its beginnings as a key trading port of the then British empire.
The latest case has shone a spotlight on its pragmatic approach, which instead of seeking to close down the sex industry aims to tightly regulate the trade to protect minors and ward off criminal involvement.
An elementary school principal who pleaded guilty to engaging the under-aged girl's services became the first to be punished when a district court on Friday sentenced him to nine weeks in jail for the offence.
Comment: Hubris knows no bounds. While this is undoubtedly propaganda, should anyone actually believe it, they need only look to the claims made through history at the outset other 'wars' to expose the truth: That psychopathic warmongers always peddle lies to sell their aims.