Exploitation, Offense, or Private Issue? Guardians' Perceptions and Self-Efficacy in Handling Girl Compensated Dating in Hong Kong.

Compensated dating (CD) has emerged as a global concern since the 1990s. Although considerable empirical research has been conducted to assess the patterns of and factors influencing CD, limited information is currently available on the attitudes of guardians (e.g., social workers, police officers, parents of students, and community representatives) in a Chinese community toward this issue. Using survey data collected from 962 guardians, the current study analyzes the guardians' perceptions of CD and their self-efficacy in handling this issue. Results show that these guardians perceive CD to be exploitative or harmful and that their self-efficacy in handling this issue was low. In particular, social workers appeared to be considerably tolerant for this phenomenon. Perceptions of CD were partly predictable by age, gender, and educational attainment, whereas self-efficacy was partly predictable by experience working with cases involving CD. This study represents the first attempt to analyze the guardians' views on a new form of child abuse. Moreover, this research has implications for social intervention, policy, and future research.

Narratives of Compensated Dating of Girls in Hong Kong Using Routine Activity Theory: Results of a Focus Group Study of Guardians.

This article presents public discourses on compensated dating of adolescent girls in Chinese society. Data are obtained from eight focus groups comprising 50 guardians at private, parochial, and public levels (i.e., social workers, police officers, parents of students, and community representatives). Qualitative data are used to demonstrate how the guardians conceptualize and contextualize compensated dating as an outcome of the dynamics of societal features. Social features such as contemporary ideologies, Internet technology advancement, commercialization of human relationships, and ambiguity between "right" and "wrong" motivate the service providers and customers of compensated dating, and accelerate their convergence and weakened levels of guardianship in society. This study is the first to connect the features of compensated dating of adolescent girls with recent societal changes using the routine activity approach. The findings confirm the application of the routine activity approach in the phenomenon of girls' compensated dating, and also offer theoretical and practical implications.