Judge sends jail term message to dirty old men

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Judge sends jail term message to dirty old men
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Channel NewsAsia - Saturday, February 21

</cite>SINGAPORE: The defence lawyer traipsed through the red—light district of Geylang, looking for posters that warned Singaporeans of the consequences of having sex with underaged prostitutes under revised laws.

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</noscript>The only bills he saw were those that said "no smoking" and "room for hire — $10", defence lawyer R S Bajwa told Justice Lee Seiu Kin on Friday, as he appealed to have his client’s year—long jail term thrown out. The lawyer said more education was needed. The Supreme Court judge conceded that "this is a new offence and greater publicity will prevent such cases from happening again", but said Tan Chye Hin must be jailed because "ultimately this is white slavery and we don’t want Singaporeans to contribute to the demand".

He cut the sentence to nine months, but not before labelling the likes of Tan "dirty old men". "The fact he wanted a younger girl is the aggravating factor," said Justice Lee. "We need to tell all the dirty old men out there that (this sort of behaviour) is out of bounds." Though Tan is the first Singaporean to be found guilty of having sex with an underaged prostitute since tougher laws were introduced last year, Justice Lee felt that Tan’s role in the affair was less serious than pimp Wang Minjiang’s, because "pimps exploit vulnerability and their degree of culpability is way up there".
The latter, who introduced Tan to the prostitute, was jailed a year by the High Court last November.

But this did not mean that Tan was innocent: When offered the choice between a 19—year—old and one just shy of her 17th birthday, the defendant opted for the latter. Legally, a person in Singapore can have consensual sex at the age of 16. However, the girl — who cannot be named because of a gag order — was below the age of consent for commercial sex, which is 18. The law was enacted to protect the underaged from sexual exploitation. According to court documents, Tan had shopped for the prostitute in Geylang last August. He could have been jailed for up to seven years and fined. Mr Bajwa had argued that his client was ignorant of the fact that the new law was already in force. While it may have made headlines in the press, he felt more public education was needed to get the message across. However, Deputy Senior State Counsel Mark Tay disagreed: "It cannot be said that there is no publicity, there have been lengthy debates in Parliament that have been covered by the papers".

— TODAY/so