[Howard Beale]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't help but wonder about the situation in the US, particularly NYC, for a few reasons

I work near Chinatown in NYC and often see signs for massages, acupressure, etc. I have gone into a few of them and the ones I've seen do not perform anything sexual - unless I'm just too oblivious to notice.

Also, I once came close to representing someone known as Madam Ping, who was fairly famous in the Chinatown area. She was famous because she was involved in smuggling immigrants from overseas. And when I was being interviewed to represent her, I learned that the process usually resulted in the immigrants becoming workers, or slaves, once they arrived in this country. They were not necessarily coerced physically - though some may have been. It was simply a financial deal: the immigrants understood that they had to work in order to pay for the price of getting into this country.

Anyway, that is the background to my questions.

[/ QUOTE ]

In NYC all of the places I'm talking about were not in street level store fronts. Check out the ads in the Voice for the sex places.

As for the smuggled immigrants:

It's fairly common knowledge that the deal is that they have to work off their passage. The basements of Chinatown are a warren of sweatshops that would shock America if fully revealed.