(ECNS) -- A court in Guangling District in the eastern Chinese city Yangzhou has convicted three suspects charged with running college student prostitution rings, local news portal yznews.com.cn reported.
More than 10 suspects received administrative punishment in the case, while three received criminal convictions after they were charged with introducing others into prostitution.
Students from secondary technical schools were found to have worked as prostitutes using online groups for communication.
One student, born in 1998, was persuaded by a friend to trade sex for money to buy a bicycle for about 4,000 yuan ($610), which her parents thought too expensive and refused to support. Her friend, another student from an ordinary family, also became a prostitute due to a lack of money.
A third student, born in 1994, sold sex at the behest of the head of an online chat group after she spent more than 20,000 yuan on computer games and became financially strained.
The pimp charged 20 to 50 yuan from clients for introducing them to student prostitutes, according to court documents.
Police also found another student, born in 1995, working as a prostitute herself and also facilitating sexual acts.
China's criminal law stipulates that those harboring prostitution or seducing or introducing others into prostitution are to be sentenced to five years or less in prison or put under criminal detention or surveillance, in addition to paying a fine. If the case is serious, they are to be sentenced to five years or more in prison in addition to a fine.
