An increasing number of Hong Kong teenagers are selling sex to earn money for designer clothes in a trend called 'compensated dating', a survey released Sunday on indicated.
One in 10 students questioned said they believed schoolgirls were involved in the practice and 6.6 per cent said they knew fellow students who had done it.
Eighty seven per cent of the 3,000 interviewees said they believed teenagers got involved in the practice to earn money to buy designer clothes and brand-name products.
Police in the wealthy city of 7 million have arrested several men in recent months for allegedly working as pimps for schoolgirls as young as 13.
The trend for compensated dating, a euphemism for paid sex with young women usually by older men, is believed to have spread to Hong Kong from Japan.
A 19-year-old girl was arrested earlier this month after a video of her giving a man oral sex on a double-decker bus to earn $25 towards a Gucci handbag circulated on the Internet.