The Fuji Building in Hong Kong is notorious for its prostitution. From the outside, it looks no different to the skyscrapers that surround it. Even Trip Advisor has a gallery of images. Hallways are decorated with fairy lights outside each room. The lights glow in various shades of pink. Strange anime cartoons accompany the messages.
Behind each door lies a different woman. The floors vary in decorative appeal and become less busy the further down you travel. Her cloudy contacts match the dreamlike, opaque lighting in the room behind her.
The room looks clean and well-mirrored. There are women in all - between five and eight on each floor. Some are from Laos, in southeast Asia, others are Chinese or Russian. Most are in their twenties, and many of them also live there. The place never gets uncomfortably crowded but it can get busy at times. A sign for an "hourly hotel" allegedly used for sexual encounters in a popular shopping district in Hong Kong.
Prostitution is legal in Hong Kong, but the region has some unique rules around its sex industry. Soliciting, living off earnings of a sex worker or controlling a woman for the purpose of prostitution is outlawed, but as the South China Morning Post explained, it is only classed as illegal if more than one prostitute is working in the room.
A look inside one of the hall ways of the Fuji building. Female entertainers gather at a bar doorway in Hong Kong's notorious Wan Chai bar and club district. Gaskell spoke to a five-year veteran volunteer at Zi Teng - a Hong Kong group which advocates the rights for sex workers - identified only as Lee.
