In Geylang’s narrow lorongs, a quietly pulsing human story unfolds. On a humid Tuesday morning, 58-year-old Serene, a part-time outreach worker, ambles through the back-lanes of Singapore’s red-light district, tote bag of chilli-guava chips in hand. She stops to chat with two women she has never seen before. One says she’s “just a few weeks” in Singapore and won’t overstay. Serene laughs gently and says: “No, I’m not a police officer … I work around here.” This brief encounter, described in a special feature by the The Straits Times, is a snapshot of a much larger and murkier reality: the hidden lives of sex workers in Singapore, at once transient and forgotten.
Regulated brothels sit under Singapore’s razor-sharp laws—but much of the business thrives in a twilight economy beyond the public eye. According to a 2023 study by the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, at any given time there may be approximately 8,030 female sex workers in Singapore, although the true figure could be as low as 3,980 or as high as 16,200. Only around 800-1,000 work in more than 100 regulated brothels in Geylang; the vast majority are freelancers, migrants on tourist visas, or operate via massage parlours, KTV lounges, or private apartment-ads.
Take the story of Linh, a Vietnamese mother who once married a Singaporean man and found herself trapped by abuse and obligations. After her husband cheated and her parents fell ill, she turned to sex work in 2021. She paid S$5,000 up-front to an unlicensed brothel owner, S$35 or S$60 for half-hour or hour access to a room, and kept whatever she earned from clients. She refused “no condom” offers. The work stopped three months after she quit once her parents died; she now works as a legitimate masseuse. Her story shows how complex and non-monolithic these lives are—some enter for survival, others for escape, some part-time and transient, others hoping for an exit strategy.
In Singapore, prostitution per se is legal—but many associated activities are not. Brothel-based sex work is regulated; sex workers must undergo periodic STI and HIV screenings under the Medical Surveillance Scheme introduced in 1976. But soliciting in public, working without proper documentation, living off the earnings of a sex worker, running an unlicensed brothel—all are criminalised. This creates a precarious space: sex workers in licensed brothels have access to some governmental health protections, while those in the underground economy face more risk, stigma and exploitation.
Language matters here too: ask anyone in the trade and a Singlish phrase might pop out like “steady lah” for a good client, or “shiok” for the feeling of a decent earning day—but also “tak boleh stay long”, when a migrant worker knows the tourist-visa clock is ticking. Many of the workers are transitory migrants—locals (Singapore citizens or PRs) make up only 15-20 % of the industry. The rest drift in from neighbouring countries, staying only weeks or months before moving on.
What goes unseen is not just the legal/illegal divide but the human cost: irregular work, sudden raids, scams, debt, and the stigma of being “the other”. Serene puts it plainly: “We’re not here to rescue anyone … But if someone looks troubled, we might ask if there’s something we can do.” The nebulous nature of their work means workers often rely on informal “quasi-family networks” of friends and contacts to arrange travel, lodging and sometimes safety advice.
As Singapore’s socio-legal terrain shifts, so too does the trade. The physical loci of sex work—once concentrated in Geylang, Orchard Towers, Desker Road and the old Golden Mile Complex—are increasingly obscured by online bookings, chat-channels, subscription platforms, and informal hotel rentals. The migrant-female genotype dominates the scene, but the legal protections are designed mainly for the formalised part of the trade; transgender or male sex workers fall largely outside the regulatory net. Dr Rayner Tan of the Saw Swee Hock School notes that although regulation gives access to health resources, only a minority of workers are enrolled in the formal system.
In the broader culture, it’s not just about taboo. In the island-city’s history, by 1884 there were an estimated 2,000 Chinese women working as prostitutes in a colonial-era boom of gender-imbalance and demand. Today, the trade is still framed in the dual lenses of regulation and repression, visibility and invisibility. The women (and men) in it seldom want pity. As one worker told the Straits Times reporter: “You only rest when there are no customers. Some days you earn a lot, some days nothing. But I am not cheating anyone.”
For a visitor or local passer-by, the lanes of Geylang may look like mere nightlife corridors. But in those alleys, between the slack-backed loungers and the shophouse shadows, there are lives full of risk, calculation and quiet hope. Whether we call them “sex workers” or “migrants doing what they must”, the story is unmistakably part of Singapore’s social fabric—unsung, complicated, and very real.
Aiyoh, my darlings, when people talk about “clean and proper” Singapore, I always laugh until my mascara runs. Clean? Proper? Sure, in the daytime. After sunset? Wah, whole different city, okay? And Auntie should know — I lived there for years, and I might still have my old red Singapore passport hiding somewhere in a drawer behind expired chili-oil packets and old kopi punch cards. I’ve seen things that would make the moral police clutch their pearls until they crack.
Let me tell you: Geylang is not just about frog porridge and durian that can kill a weak man at ten paces. It’s a world of stories — Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian “working girls” who arrive with courage, debts, and the same hopes any of us carry when life pushes us into tight corners. Over the years I’ve sat with them at tiny zinc-roof coffeeshops, sharing teh-o kosong and gossip. They told me about homes they support, men who disappointed them, and customers who — surprise! — are often much more vulnerable than the women society pretends to “protect”.
And don’t get me started on my uncle. Yes, that uncle — the one who owned one of those “cute little places” along the lorongs. To the outside world, he was a model citizen, always paying taxes on time, dressing in crisp shirts, bowing politely at community events. To his Peranakan wife, he swore up and down: “All the girls are clean one, dear! I’m very responsible. I run a respectable business!” Wah, if I had a dollar for every time he said that, I’d own a condo in Tanjong Rhu. His shop wasn’t some sleazy hellhole — it was a well-managed, well-ventilated operation where the girls had safety rules stricter than some corporations. You see what I mean? Hypocrisy and practicality cohabiting like mismatched roommates.
Singapore loves to pretend the sex trade is an embarrassing little mole it covers with concealer. But let’s be honest — the city’s economy has always had its day shift and its night shift, and both are equally real. The problem is not the women, not the work, not the “dirty business”. The problem is the shame. The way society pushes the workers into the shadows, then pretends to be shocked when we discover they exist.
So yes, my sweets, Auntie has stories for you — stories of resilience, humour, heartbreak, solidarity, and plenty of midnight nonsense. This is just the first. Blog post by blog post, I’ll peel back the layers of “perfect” Singapore, until the city looks a little more human — and a little more honest.