Drug detox center sells patients

Miel 发表于 2007-05-13 01:27:07

Drug detox center sells patients
Beijing Today, Friday, July 25, 2003
Sun Ming

"I didn’t participate in the activity, so they let me go. I knew nothing about the sex-trade before it was exposed." A licensed drug quitting center in Guangzhou decided to boost its income by selling female patients into prostitution. The illegal sex-trade was exposed in March last year. However, even though the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center was closed after the scandal was exposed, and some of the staff were arrested, the heads of the center have not yet been charged.

News Probe, an influential program on CCTV, broadcast the whole story on Monday last week. The program questioned why the heads of the Changzhou Drug Abstention Center are still at large.

Midnight telephone call
Zhao Shilong, a reporter from Yangcheng Evening News, a local newspaper in Guangzhou, received a phone call from a young woman at midnight on March 14 last year. The woman just called herself Awen. She said the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center had sold her to pimps who forced her to be a prostitute. Fortunately, she had escaped to freedom. “I know it’s wrong to take drugs, but I didn’t deserve this punishment,” Awen later tNews Probe.

Shocked by Awen’s story, Zhao arranged to meet her the next day. “She looked like a drug user, pale and very skinny,” said ZhaoAwen, 31, was introduced to drugs by some friends 10 years ago. Her family has tried to help her get over the habit and has spent many thousands of yuan in helping her quit. She has been to four different drug clinics in the past few years in Guangdong Province, and these clinics tend to be pretty expensive. But Awen kept returning to her addiction. On December 2, 2001, police arrived at her small apartment and caught her taking drugs. Two days later, she was sent to the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center.

Four months later, on March 2 last year, two pimps came to the center and took Awen away. In the following four days, Awen was forced to experience the life of a prostitute.

Reporters disguised as pimps
In order to gain evidence, Awen took Zhao and his colleague Gong Ling, a photographer, to the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center in the south of Guangzhou on March 16, 2002. "We were disguised as pimps,” said Zhao. “I couldn’t believe the center coue so terrible. But as Awen told me, they really did sell women into prostitution.”Zhao showed two pictures they took secretly to News Probe. One picture was taken when Shao Liai, a worker at the center, introduced two women to Zhao. The other shows Zhao giving money for them to Shao.

After being informed by Zhao and Awen, Guangzhou police closed the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center on March 19. On December 25 last year, Guangzhou Municipal Procuratorate charged two staff members of the drug center and four local pimps, Mao Zufu, Wang Xianzhen, Ding Chuanju and Peng Anle. The two staff members were Chen Taizhong, a section chief at the center, and Shao Liai, a common worker, but the heads of the center haven’t received any punishment yet.“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Zhao tNews Probe. “I think Luo Xianwen, the director of the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center, should be the major culprit in the center’s sex-trade. And there must be more people who supported Luo in the dark, because Luo himself couldn’t manage the whole thing.Zhao thinks that the heads of the Guangzhou Second Workers Sanatorium are also responsible, because the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center was operated by the Sanatorium.

Sex-trade conducted in reception room
A reporter from News Probe interviewed Awen in Guangzhou on June 14 this year. Awen, who asked for a shadow over her face in the program, said that she hadn’t been able to live a normal life for over a year since she reported her story in March last year. “I don’t dare to go back to my hot own in Chigang, in the suburbs of Guangzhou. I’m afraid those people will take revenge on me or my family,” said Awen. “I won’t feel safe until all the people who supported the sex-trade are brought to justicAwen told News Probe that she was sold in the morning of March 2 last year. At that time she had been at the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center for four months.

“Chen Taizhong, the section chief of the center, told me that two people in the reception room would pick me up. I was quite surprised with the sudden news,” said Awen. “I thought they might be my family. Instead, they were two people she’d never seen before. Besides Awen, there were several other female patients in the reception room.

“Chen told me and two other women to leave with the two guys. I realized that they us to be pimps, because I had heard some rumors about this sex-trade before. I cried out and struggled. I told Chen that I wouldn’t go with them. But he forced me. Our family haven’t paid your expenses here. We can’t serve (sic) you free of charge,” Awen quoted Chen as saying to News Probe.

“Luo Xianwen, the director of the drug center, entered the room when I cried out. "It’s so noisy. Take her away, the sooner the better."I felt despahen I heard that. Even the head of the drug center supported the sex-trade,” said Awen. Awen said she and the two other women were sold for 1,000 yuan each to Mao Zufu and Wang Xianzhen. The three women were taken to Kangle village, Haizhu District, Guangzhou.

Escape to freedom
“We arrived there in the afternoon that day. The pimps ordered us to take a shower first and then put on some make up. In the evening, around 8pm, a female pim took us to a dark street.”On the street, Awen encountered several other women whom she had met in the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center before. “The pimp told us to just stand there. I wanted to escape, but the pimp always kept a certain distance from us. She told us that if we tried to escape, they could always catch us and then they would beat us to death,” said Awen who was forced to service clients for the following four days.On March 6.

Awen escaped with another women when the pimp who was watching them went to the bathroom. Awen got in a taxi and hurried to a friend’s home in downtown Guangzhou and stayed there for a whole week.On March 14 she decided to report the case to Yangcheng Evening News, an influential newspaper in Guangzhou.

Sex-trade conducted since 2001
“The Changzhou Drug Quitting Center conducted its sex-trade for at least a year,” an unnamed tired worker from the Guangzhou Second Workers Sanatorium told News Probe. The retired worker revealed that the sex-trade had happened occasionally and in secret before, but after March 2001 the drug center began to sell female patients two or three times a week and usually seven or eight people were sold at a time. The price ranged from 500 to 1,000 yuan.

He explained that all the drug quitting centers in Guangdong Province which were not established by the departments of public security were to be shut down by 2002. The Changzhou Drug Quitting Center, which was established by Guangzhou Second Workers Sanatorium in 1991, wanted to make more money before it was closed. Another inside source revealed that the drug center usually chose patients whose hometown was outside Guangdong Province, because they rarely contacted their families.

“Helping drug users recover involves a very heavy economic burden, so a lot of the patients had simply been given up by their families. The drug quitting center just took advantage of this to conduct the sex trade,” said the insider.

Head people involved
According to Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court, Chen Taizhong and Shao Liai, the two arrested employees of the center, insisted that they were just carrying out the orders of their bosses. The two men are still n detention and awaiting final judgment. Zhao Shilong, the reporter from Yangcheng Evening News, also said that when he went to the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center with his colleague and Awen last year, one of the people who bargained with them was Luo Xianwen, the director of the center.

“He asked for 1,800 yuan for one woman, and then cut the price to 1,400 yuan, and then 1,200 yuan. At last we made a bargain at the price of 1,000 yuan.”An insider also told News Probe that Luo and Zhang Yiping, the head of the Guangzhou Second Workers Sanatorium were involved. “Woul common employees really dare to sell patients to pimps without their bosses’ permission?” The insider told the program that after police closed the drug center on March 19 last year, Luo Xianwen and Zhang Yiping lookevery calm.

“They organized a meeting and asked their employees to burn all the account books relating to the sex-trade,” said the insider who claimed to have seen the account books. “It took half a day to destroy all them.

Interview with Luo Xianwen
Luo Xianwen still works for the Guangzhou Second Workers Sanatorium. He accepted an interview from News Probe at his office on June 14 this year.

News Probe: Why was the Changzhou Drug Quitting Center closed by police in May last year?
Luo: They said that some staff members organized prostitution.

News Probe: Who organized the activity?
Luo: Police took more than 10 staff members including me to the police station after they closed our center. I didn’t participate in the activity, so they let me go.
I knew nothing about the sex-trade before it was exposed
Zhao Shilong (the reporter from Yangcheng Evening News): I can prove what you just said is a lie.

News Probe: Do you know him, Director Luo?
Luo: No.

Zhao: Have you never seen me before?
Luo: No.

Zhao: I bought two women from you.
Luo: No. I never did any business with him.

News Probe: Are you sure?
Luo: Definitely.

News Probe interviewed Zhang Yiping the same day, who also denied that he’d been involved in the sex-trade. (Source: CCTV). Li Xuewei, an editor from News Probe told Beijing Today on Tuesday that two days after News Probe was broadcast on July 14, Guangzhou Municipal Discipline Inspection Committee ordered Luo Xianwen and Zhang Yiping to come to the committee to explain themselves.

“It was hard to cover this case,” added Li. “The departments of public security, the procuratorate and the court in Guangdong Province all refused to speak to us. This is no simple case.”

http://bjtoday.ynet.com/article.jsp?oid=2450062
--from Dony Agustinus, Thursday, July 31, 2003