Prostitution Leader Executed in China

(Chongqing, China) In 2010, the female head of an organized crime prostitution ring, Wang Ziqi, was convicted of forcing hundreds of women into prostitution.

An appeal to the Chongqing Municipal Higher People’s Court was rejected.

This week, Wang Ziqi was executed.

Chongqing has been the scene of a drive against corruption and organised crime.

A court in the huge metropolis in south-west China sentenced Wang Ziqi to death in August 2010 after convicting her of organising and leading a criminal organisation.

She and her sister Wang Wanning would control the women by such methods as seizing their identity cards, confiscating their earnings and detaining them illegally, according to cqnews.net, a website that belongs to the official Chongqing Daily.

Wang Ziqi in court

According to cqnews.net, Wang Ziqi and her sisters ran the prostitution ring with efficient gangland cruelty.

The sisters would control the women by using methods such as "seizing their ID cards, ruining their reputations, harming their family members, confiscating the money they earnt and detaining them illegally," the cqnews.net report said.

They also arranged for designated people to teach the women the "skills" of prostitution, it added. The women had to work even when they had their period or after they had undergone forced abortions, or risk being beaten and put in a dark room for days without food.

Seven of the women died in mysterious circumstances, the report said. In 2003, one of the women jumped from the eighth floor of a teahouse and was paralysed. But she was still kept locked up until she was released by police in September 2009, it added.

Wang Ziqi is merely one of many gang members executed in a recent crackdown on graft and corruption.