The article ' The noon brides phenomenon ' highlights the burgeoning social problem but is a bit skewed in giving the impression that prostitutes, especially foreign ones are forced and tricked into the trade. The impression given is that the country and its capital city is not only rife with rape cases reported daily in newspapers but also rampant forced human slavery that will surely give bullets to PAS's manifesto that as a society we require 'moral cleansing'.

One cannot address the problem if there were so much disinformation about it. I am sure 'trafficking groups and syndicate members' are prime players recruiting some foreigners and tricking or enslaving them in the process but we do not know exactly the extent and proportion of this form of slavery and whether it might not otherwise be the case of a higher proportion of the sex workers merely using these groups to facilitate their entry freely into Malaysian market to advance the girls' entrepreneurial aspirations with minimum overheads (sexual paraphernalia and medical bills).

For a more accurate picture, journalists should not confine their interviews to activists or authorities. Authorities, activists and samaritans like Michael Chong, head of the MCA public complaints bureau, only meet sex workers tricked and forced and trying to escape their predicament. Journalists should interview on conditions of anonymity the men customers and the sex workers themselves.

They are not just found in luxury condominiums, which are more likely housing part-time mistresses kept by rich businessmen, and mistresses are by definition not prostitutes. Journalists should go to all the recreational 'health' centres of all our hotels, especially the 3- or 4-star type, the karaoke lounges with guest relation officers and even some hair dressing saloons.

Whilst it may be convenient to explain the phenomenon in terms of forced slavery to whip up moral outrage in the hope of an even stronger crackdown on vice, this explanation is basically suspect as to veracity.

Sex workers from China may enter the country under the guise of "college students" but this does not mean that they are under some form of captivity which being forced they do not have an opportunity to flee from their oppressors to the authorities. I simply cannot believe that sex workers working in respectable hotel recreational centres, karaoke lounges and nightspots are so restrained that they have no opportunity to flee and regain their freedom.

The truth is that a larger proportion of them are here and voluntarily plying the trade at their own free will for the money. As the businessman interviewed in the report said, "the women mostly enter as English-language students and make enough money in three years to return home rich. Some have married and settle down here."

If ever they were tricked, it was by "stories of Malaysian streets being paved in gold" as epitomised by BN's crowing glory - the gleaming Petronas Twin Towers - as Irene Fernandez, director of Tenaganita said.

Loss of foreign exchange to foreign sex workers and competition with local women for their men's sexual attention and money are not the main problems of this phenomenon.

The main problem is the spread of sexually transmittable diseases including AIDS to local men, and from them to their spouses. Patrons delude themselves to thinking that their use of condoms takes care of the risks. It does not.

This is because more than half of men patrons will have recourse to prostitutes for oral sex (that transmits disease) precisely because their wives would not entertain them. Now another dimension to the problem is added by Sars because many sex workers are from southern provinces of China from which Sars originated, and one can safely bet that patrons do not wear surgical masks for protection in their recreation!

With syndicates of this lucrative industry collaborating with certain black sheep amongst the enforcement authorities that provide the indispensable tip off against charades of a vice raid, there is no way the problem can be managed, let alone nipped in the bud unless we legalise prostitution and by these means regulate that which is unavoidable. (I take it to be self evident that because the demand of prostitutes will always be sustained by men's biological lust that is sought to be gratified by convenience of monetary payment without emotional entanglement and complemented by sex worker's need to make easy money without academic or other skills, the oldest profession will thrive no matter what extent of moral or religious education inculcated against its patronage).

Regulation, however, implies legal legitimacy, which will run counter against the other pragmatic concern that as a conservative society held together by religious values, we cannot legalise it. So prostitution will forever remain 'underground' to proliferate with all its attendant ills beyond regulation and management.

That is basically the dilemma, the long and short of it. Today we 'import' sex workers from the poor rural areas of China, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Uzbekistan and Cambodia.

Thirty years ago when our currency was still relatively strong, some of our men could still afford going to Japan and Korea to engage the services of their sex workers. When the ringgit declines against the yen, the won, the American, Australian and Singapore dollars over these years, the trend reverses and either our girls here go over to these countries to earn these currencies or their men come over here to exploit our women!

In a rather perverse way, the net inflow or outflow of migrant sex workers is an indication of our economic performance. We should pray that we will always improve our economy and not let it deteriorate to the extent that the importation stops and is replaced by the export of our local girls to these places to make money! (What national pride is there in having the tallest skyscraper in the world when we become net exporter of our daughters, sisters and mothers as sex workers? There is only but shame).

Meanwhile a report that say that by and large foreign sex workers are "forced" and not voluntarily seeking fortunes here only gives the erroneous impression to others that we are backward country with lackadaisical law enforcement rather than an unintended consequence of economic achievement, and therefore should be eschewed.