Prostitutes Boost 'Business' Using Mobile Apps

Using mobile applications, pimps and prostitutes are now expanding their businesses without giving up on the old-fashioned mean to build their clientele.

The Morals Protection and Anti Human Trafficking Departments of the Judicial Police monitored a prostitution ring resorting to "We Chat" mobile application for communication with clients, and managed to detain around 50 girls from different nationalities (Lebanese, Syrian and Jordanian) involved in prostitution.

Reports say that most of the prostitutes avoid contacts with Lebanese young men and prefer other Arab nationalities, for fear of being detained by the bureau's informers who are intensifying their patrols to combat human trafficking.

For instance, prostitutes take the initiative and send their photos and phone numbers to young men through "We Chat" app, and schedule an appointment in a luxurious hotel where they often get busted by the Judicial Police unit.

Lately, two Jordanian women were caught red-handed when one of them contacted an Iraqi young man who was tasked by the bureau to trick them.

They agreed to meet at a hotel in Beirut; both women were driven by a man who soon left after dropping them off. The Iraqi young man apologized, paid them without having sex and asked them to leave the hotel, where they both were detained.

The man who had escorted them was also arrested just a few meters away from the Beirut Municipality building. A four-month-old baby was found in his car.

 Investigations later revealed that he is the father of the baby and his mother was one of the detained prostitutes, who admitted that her husband forced her to sell her body.

She also admitted that he was both verbally and physically abusive when she failed to abide by his orders.

The husband was apprehended for human trafficking and prostitution while the woman was released for the sake of her baby.