Vietnam debates sex work

Out in the open: A prostitue looking for customers during the day at a public park in downtown Hanoi. — AFP

HANOI: For Vietnamese sex workers like Do Thi Oanh, being caught touting for business used to carry a long stint in forced “rehabilitation”, but as fines replace detention, many detect a shifting attitude towards the world’s oldest profession.

In 2008, Oanh was sent to one of Vietnam’s notorious rehabilitation camps on the outskirts of Hanoi, joining hundreds of prostitutes and drug addicts detained without conviction for taking part in a “social evil”.