Thirty years of China's 'custody and education'
- By Zhang Lulu
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E-mail China.org.cn, July 3, 2014
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| A "custody and education" center in Nantong, Jiangsu Province provides detainees with vocational training. [Photo/Nandu.com] |
The 30-year-old "custody and education" system, a penalty for sex workers and those who solicit prostitutes, has once again come into the limelight, after actor Huang Haibo was found guilty of soliciting a prostitute and recently received a six-month detention.
The "custody and education" system has had a history of thirty years in China.
Rise and fall
The first "custody and education" center was established on June 27, 1984 in Shanghai, overseen by the Shanghai municipal public security authorities.
Since then, such centers began to grow in China. In September 1991, China's legislature, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed a decision on prostitution and whoring, giving the public security organ the right to arrest sex workers and those who solicit prostitutes for "legal and moral education and labor," with a detention lasting six months to two years. The decision laid the legal foundation for the practice.
The "custody and education" centers saw a phenomenal rise from 1992 to 2005. According to a report by the 21st Century Business Herald, 111 centers were established by June, 1992 with over 20,000 detainees. The number of the centers grew to 200 by 2005.
But such practices began to decline when the Law of the PRC on Penalties for Administration of Public Security was passed in 2005, which in effect superseded the NPC's decision in 1991, due to the principle that a prior law should give place to a later one.
The Law on Penalties for Administration of Public Security stipulates that sex workers and their customers are subject to 10 to 15 days in detention, with not more than 5,000 yuan (US$800) in fines, and if the circumstances are less serious, offenders shall be detained for not more than five days or be fined not more than 500 yuan.
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