Two 15-year-old boys in New Taipei City (新北市) allegedly pimped at least a dozen girls aged as young as 12, police said yesterday
The boys allegedly recruited the girls via the Internet and arranged for them to work in teahouses and hotels for about NT$2,000 a time, police said.
“The girls wanted to buy designer products and they wanted to enjoy life. They used various excuses to hide this from their parents and some parents even covered for them when they missed school,” a police spokesman said.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) said the two boys — who reportedly lived in an apartment with three of the girls — were the nation’s youngest-ever alleged pimps.
“We didn’t steal, we didn’t rob. We were merely helping girls in trouble,” one of them was quoted as saying.
TV footage showed some girls carrying expensive designer bags and giggling while they were taken to a police station on Tuesday.
The boys face a maximum seven-year jail term if convicted of pimping, though they would likely be placed in a juvenile correctional facility.
The police said the girls would be sent to a special school for teenagers forced into sex work, or be put into foster care if necessary.
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