Prostitution in Singapore in itself is not illegal, but various prostitution-related activities are criminalized. This includes public solicitation, living on the earnings of a prostitute and maintaining a brothel. In practice, police unofficially tolerate and monitor a limited number of brothels. Prostitutes in such establishments are required to undergo periodic health checks and must carry a health card.
History
The rapid economic development of Singapore in the late nineteenth century combined with the city's gender imbalance (the male population greatly outnumbered the female) resulted in prostitution becoming a flourishing business and brothels a boom industry. The prostitutes were primarily Chinese and Japanese, imported as karayuki-san. It is estimated that 80% of the women and girls coming from China to Singapore in the late 1870s were sold into prostitution. The development of the Japanese enclave in Singapore at Middle Road, Singapore was connected to the establishment of brothels east of the Singapore River, namely along Hylam, Malabar, Malay and Bugis Streets during the late 1890s. By 1905 there were at least 109 Japanese brothels in Singapore.
Prostitution was seen by the colonial authorities as a necessary evil but a number of steps were taken to place restrictions on prostitution in the city. The registration of prostitutes and brothels was made compulsory in an attempt to prevent forced prostitution, and an Office to Protect Virtue was set up to help anyone unwillingly involved in prostitution. Shortly after the outbreak of World War I the colonial authorities banned prostitution by white women, and as a result the white brothels in Singapore (over twenty in 1914) had all closed by 1916.
A 1916 report described the misery and indecency of the prostitutes working in the red-light districts around Malay Street and Smith Street, and pressure was placed on the Colonial Office in Britain to further restrict licensed prostitution. Sir Arthur Young, governor-general of the Straits Settlements, considered prostitution indispensable for the colony's economy and labour supply but the sale of women and girls into prostitution was banned in 1917. Influential figures in the city's Japanese community who were concerned about dignity and morality put pressure on the Japanese Consulate to end Japanese prostitution. In 1920 the Consulate ordered the banishment of all Japanese prostitutes from Singapore, though some of the women remained as unlicensed prostitutes. The importation of women and girls for prostitution was banned in 1927 and brothels were banned in 1930, though prostitution remained legal.
During the Japanese occupation of Singapore (1942–45), brothels were set up for the use of Japanese servicemen. There were about twenty such brothels in the city, typically housed in deserted Chinese mansions. By the time of the surrender of Japan in 1945 prostitution was flourishing.
In the 1950s striptease acts took place at the city's getai shows, performed by specialist travelling dance troupes. The shows developed a sleazy image, partly as a result of stories about performers working as prostitutes. During this decade the city's police organised operations to reduce prostitution and Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock sought out suggestions as to how prostitution could be limited. Women's rights activist Shirin Fozdar described Singapore as "one big brothel" and the city was a regional centre for prostitution. The People's Action Party under the leadership by Lee Kuan Yew initially banned prostitution when they came to power in the late 1950s, switching to a strategy of containment in the mid 1960s.
From the 1950s to the early 1980s Bugis Street was famous for its nightly adult-themed shows performed by transvestites and groups of prostitutes would also openly solicit there. Neighbouring Johore Road was also part of the red-light district in the 1960s and the 1970s, with transgender prostitutes soliciting for business in the shophouses and alleys. Suppression of prostitution in the area began in the 1970s, and the trade was dispersed to the surrounding areas such as Jalan Besar. The old Bugis Street was demolished in the mid-1980s, and Johore Road disappeared in the late 1990s.