For unconsummated sex services 2 tourists demand money back

The going rate for paid sex seems to border around the $150-range as discovered by koban police officers last Saturday from two Japanese males who allegedly paid two ladies the amount for sexual services.

The discovery came after Department of Public Safety officers over the weekend spotted two Japanese tourists in their 40s walking down the street in the company of two women in their 20s.

DPS spokesperson Cecil Celes reported that koban officers only stopped to engage in a conversation with the Japanese men when the ladies suspiciously started to flee from their presence.

“When they were asked where they were going, the tourists voluntarily told the police that they had just paid the ladies $150 each to have sex with them,” Ms. Celes quoted the filed police report.

Police then advised the Japanese tourists against soliciting prostitution, citing the act is illegal in the Northern Marianas, much to the tourists’ surprise.

Both males admitted they were not aware of the local law and that they required their money back for services that were not rendered.

Authorities combed Western Garapan in search for the two women who apparently fled with a total of $300 in their pockets.

Later, they were spotted on two separate locations within Saipan’s busiest commercial district and were identified as the ladies that the two Japanese tourists earlier almost conducted business with.

But the female suspects Ying Wang and Ye-Jun Wang refused to give back the money, saying they already turned over the cash to the Diamond Karaoke Club manager Yan Kexin.

The three have been arrested for charges of theft.

“Right now the case has been referred to the Atty. General’s Office where they can reclassify the charges whether it’s going to be prostitution loitering or theft. Right now it’s theft but it might lead to prostitution loitering. It all depends,” said Ms. Celes.

A September to December 2000 DPS-commissioned survey has cited prostitution and public parking as the most prevalent concern in the Western Garapan district.

Respondents to the survey have also enumerated purse snatching, theft, burglary, sewage, trash bins, closed roads, street market, and littering under the tourist commercial district’s 10 most pressing problems.

Business owners have particularly been pleading authorities to put a halt to the proliferation of prostitution on Saipan especially as these alleged sex workers have been known to enroach on their establishments’ premises in going about their “business” deals.

All over the nation, statistics from the National Task Force on Prostitution states that over one million people in the US have been employed as sex workers, or about 1 percent of American women.

This figure is according to records compiled in the 1980s. Statistics further reveal that average prostitution arrests in the US mainland include 70 percent females, 20 percent male prostitutes and 10 percent customers.

Over the years, strong and heated debates have been devoted to the issues on prostitution. Today, there is reportedly no official definition of legalized decriminalized prostitution.