Extracted from New Paper
Customer threatens undergrad, another abuses her. Yet...
She does hazardous job to pay off family debt
April 05, 2005
HER world used to be bright, cheery and full of hope.
Candice (not her real name) was close to getting her university degree.
A promising future lay ahead.
But now all that seems like an impossible hope.
Within a month, the Singapore undergrad's world has become dark and dreary.
Candice, in her 20s, is now a freelance call girl - who charges $250 for each assignation.
MORE THAN 30 TIMES
From early February, she has accepted such bookings more than 30 times with 12 complete strangers.
She has done this despite the risk of being abused and getting infectious diseases.
And the risk of her secret getting out and blackening her reputation.
What makes her do this?
Her reason: To pay off her family's debt which amounts to around $11,000.
Her woes started two years ago, she said, when her father became the guarantor for a relative, who had borrowed heavily from loan sharks.
When the relative ran away, the loan sharks came knocking on their doors, demanding payment of over $100,000, she claimed.
To pay the debt, the parents sold their HDB flat last year and used the cash proceeds and family savings to pay off the loan sharks.
The debts were cleared and the family later moved into another flat in the same neighbourhood, renting it for over $1,000 monthly.
The rental was high byt Candice said the landlord was a relative's friend and he had indicated that they could delay the payments initially.
She said: 'Also, I didn't want my parents to stay in a smaller flat, after living so long in a more spacious flat.'
But after 10 months of non-payment, the outstanding rental accumulated to around $11,000, The landlord then got impatient and threatened legal action, unless the family pays a portion of the rental weekly.
Candice said: 'It was very stressful to see my parents worrying over the family problems and possible legal action. Being grown-up, I felt that I had the responsibility to help them.'
Her father is a labourer who earns around $1,000 monthly when he has jobs.
Her mother is a housewife. Candice has a brother who's still studying.
But given the relatively small debt of $11,000, could she have tried seeking other forms of help, instead of prostituting herself?
NO WORK FOR MUM
Could her mother find work?
Candice said: 'My mum's uneducated and has been a housewife for years. She's also quite sickly.
'Who'd want to employ her? Also, even if she works, she cannot earn enough to pay the debts.'
What about seeking help from her boyfriend, whom she has been dating for some time?
Said Candice: 'He doesn't earn much. And I don't like to borrow money from people. And he's my boyfriend, I don't want to burden him.'
Had she sought help from her relatives and friends? Or the town council, the community development council and even her university?
Candice said her father was a 'very proud man' who refused to seek financial help from relatives when she suggested it.
Seeking help from welfare bodies was also out of the question because these organisations would have to speak to her father to assess the family situation.
She said it was also impossible to find any job that could help her pay the rental.
To Candice, she was in a 'no way out' situation.
She said with a sigh: 'You think I would be doing this if I had other alternatives? I know people won't ever understand.'
In her desperation, she responded to a newspaper advertisement which promised good money for KTV hostesses.
She called and was told to meet a man in the lobby of a downtown hotel. He turned out to be a pimp recruiting social escorts.
He told Candice that she could either be a social escort who only offered companionship or one who was willing to have sex with the customers.
NEEDED MONEY
Candice said though she was resistant to the latter idea, she eventually agreed because she felt she needed money fast.
The pimp would take 40 per cent of her earnings.
On that day itself - barely two hours later - the pimp set up the first customer for Candice. One that she still remembers vividly.
'It was terrible.
'I was very scared when I entered the hotel room because I had never had sex with strangers before,' she said.
'I told the man that it was my first time and I didn't know anything.
'He had to teach me what to do step by step.
'The whole session lasted only 20 minutes, but it felt like an eternity for me.'
In fact, straight after her first session, Candice had to rush off to meet another customer.
After the two back-to-back sessions, she wandered alone on the streets, gazing at people and envying happy families and couples.
'When I thought about my family and my own boyfriend, and how I had to do this, tears just flowed,' she said.
'I felt like a slut and felt very 'jian' (cheap in Mandarin) for doing this.
'But who would want to do this unless she really had no choice?'
Most of her business comes from repeat customers.
Candice said she's so naive and simple-minded that some of her customers have had to teach her some tricks of the trade.
Such as collecting payment from her customers before having sex with them, buying a prepaid phone card to call them instead of using her personal line and withholding personal information from them.
Candice stopped working under the pimp after two weeks because she wanted to earn more.
She claimed that her customers included a lawyer, a broker and a businessman.
All are mostly married men in their 30s and 40s.
Candice charges $250 for each hour-long session.
A top-notch KTV hostess can command around $250 for each session while mid-range prostitutes charge around $120 to $150.
Said Candice: 'I always tell the men beforehand that they can change their mind even after they see me.
'I tell them that I need the money urgently for my family.
'Maybe some of them don't mind the high price because I'm an undergraduate.
'They would ask to see my matriculation card.'
So far, she has earned about $7,500, of which $1,500 has been paid to her pimp.
This left her with about $6,000, out of which she's given $3,000 to the landlord.
The rest has been spent on household bills and expenses, she claimed.
Candice said she was so depressed at one point, she saw a psychiatrist who diagnosed her as 'suffering from severe depression'.
Candice's ambition was to graduate from university and be a teacher.
But now, she's not so sure if she can still achieve them.
She said: 'I'm just trying to solve my family problems quickly and hope this will end as soon as possible.'
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She looks shy and thin
THE New Paper on Sunday learnt about Candice after a concerned reader contacted us about her plight.
The reader wrote: 'If she is doing her final-year studies as she claims, then she really needs some assistance and counselling help.'
When Candice turned up for the meeting, she appeared slightly depressed and sad.
Wearing no make-up and dour-looking clothes, she was what one would describe as a typical plain Jane, with girl-next-door looks.
Her pencil-thin body made her look underweight.
She even took half of this reporter's tube of Mentos mints.
After we identified ourselves as reporters, Candice was initially hesitant, But she soon opened up and even showed us her university matriculation and identification cards.
Subsequent checks confirmed that she is indeed a local undergraduate.
Candice, who appeared shy and soft spoken, recalled some of her terrible encounters.
There was a Chinese man in his 40s who treated her roughly from the moment she stepped into the hotel room.
ROUGHLY TREATED
Candice said: 'He force-kissed me and then threw me onto the bed and flipped me several times roughly.
'He kept trying different positions and even bit me on my neck.'
Other customers have also forced her to have unprotected oral sex with them.
She said one man threatened to report her to the police and even her faculty dean.
