By Catherine Lau

“There was a time when I doubted that my sister was engaged in sex work. After a week of consideration, I finally realized the fact that sex work was just an occupation. If that was how she would like to support her life on her own, why should I worry about it?" said Lee Yuk Lan, a leader of Macao’s Chi Tang Women Association (Chi Tang means purple rattan in Chinese).

Sex work in Macao is legal if workers are over 16 years old and self-employed. However, most of sex workers in Macao only hold a travel document, which means they are illegal workers. Therefore if they encounter looting or are abused by the pimps, they can only suffer in silence.

Lee visits sex workers five days a week, providing them with information on health care services, their legal rights and other resources. Distributing condoms and offering information on the Pap smear test (a test which can tell if you have an infection, unhealthy cervical cells, or cervical cancer), Lee has earned sex workers’ respect and trust so that they would talk to her about what they need.

Lee is not alone, working with her is another social worker, Yim Ut Lin. When asked how they help sex workers, Yim emphasized, “We won’t say that we are helping sex workers since there is nothing we can do for them unless we bring them more customers but we can’t. Therefore what we do is to teach them how to protect themselves and let them know that there are people who actually care about them and try hard to eliminate the discrimination against them."

According to Lee and Yim, both are from Hong Kong, the reason that they established this organization is that there was no one speaking for sex workers in Macao. They believed that sex work was just another occupation and sex workers had the right to do what they wanted. They had control over their own bodies and they could make use of them. “Why should people look down upon them when they just work as hard as we do?" they questioned. They established this organization first in Hong Kong with people who shared the same view.

Ironically, the people who are trying to fight for sex workers’ right in Macao are not from Macao, but two Hong Kong social workers. They feel frustrated that few people in Macao really want to come out to help sex worker seriously. Most of local volunteers just started out of curiosity and quit after a while. They said that because of the social environment and legal system in Macao, this kind of organization is very difficult to survive and let alone to develop. They are struggling, but it seems there are not many people interested in joining them.

Zi Teng (Hong Kong) is a non-governmental organization set up in 1996 in Hong Kong to provide social help for sex workers. In 2000, it started to reach out to sex workers in Macao. In 2006, it officially set up Chi Tang Women Association in Macao. It aims to eliminate social discrimination against sex workers and at the same time educate sex workers so that they can understand their rights and protect themselves from diseases and violence. At present, Chi Tang has two full-time staff, one volunteer doctor and six volunteers in its Macao office.