A brothel is a place where people may come to engage in sexual activity with a prostitute, sometimes referred to as a sex worker. The brothel will create more social problems and unwanted pregnancy including the spread of HIV Aids, now prevalent on the island.
He admitted being aware of asylum seekers engaging local youths to buy home brew for them, however, he said he had not received any reports of local youths soliciting young girls for sexual favors with asylum seekers.
He said the asylum seekers outnumber the local police with a total of at the Manus regional processing centre at Lombrum while there are 68 refugees at the East Lorengau transit centre. These included cases such as consumption of home-brew and drugs, procession of pornographic materials, drunk and disorderly behaviour causing nuisances in public places, resisting police arrest, damaging properties and sexual touching and assault.
The court has convicted those found guilty in the form of fines, others were cautioned and discharged. But some cases were struck out because of the lack of evidence. Technically, any premise where prostitution commonly takes place qualifies as a brothel. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments sometimes describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub parlors, and studios or by some other description.
He said that 39 cases were reported to police last year involving asylum seekers and refugees.
