Today Media Group reports of alleged prostitution within Chinese karaoke bars. They were tipped off by a concerned citizen living in the Southeastern suburbs of Brisbane.

“It feels like the girls are all quite young, I heard that they were mainly international students or holiday workers.”

Today Group also managed to speak to some ‘madams’ of the establishment, garnering more information in regards to the working girls.

About Safety: We do not train these girls ourselves, we are only providing a service to help students find part time jobs to pay off their school fees. First of all the girls all use established hotel rooms, which are safe and private, it’s just like going on a date with your girlfriend, we hope you have a good time with the students. About the girls: Most of the girls are either international students, young white collared workers or holiday wokers from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. There are also some wealthy girls from Mainland China on vacation. I can guarantee you that most of these girls are born after 1990, not professionals and are only doing it for a short time in order to pay off school fees or living fees. Also we will also encourage them to do health checks so you can be one hundred percent at rest (about the welfare of the girls).

Of course most of this is not completely new, as there have been various reports in the past about prostitution in the apartment complexes of Sydney. Similarly, in many other cities you can easily find these services on the Chinese social media app known as WeChat by just using the ‘look around’ function. Sightings of karaokes hostesses, as well as hosts (male version) have also been declared within Melbourne.

Is this a worrying development in Australia or just a continuation of the oldest profession?