An art school in Kunming, the capital of Southwest China's Yunnan Province, sent eight underage dancing students to work as bar girls, local media reported, making it the second art school caught by the media in the last three months to have made such arrangements.

Last November, a dancing school in Guilin in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region sent 22 underage girls to give erotic performances at clubs. The school's license was revoked after being found out.

The Kunming school was exposed when an anxious mother in the Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture called the newspaper New Life Post in Kunming and said that her 15-year-old daughter, Xiaohong, had to endure sexual harassment at a club where the school had sent her for an internship.

Xiaohong and the other seven girls, all aged between 15 and 18, came from poverty-stricken mountainous areas in Yunnan. They were admitted by the private Kunming Art Professional Institute last July to receive dance training until December, when the school asked them to intern in Fuzhou, capital of East China's Fujian Province, which is more than 1,500 kilometers away from Kunming.

'Modern dances'

During their "internship" the girls lived together under the supervision of a man. They were made to wear mini skirts and told to dance sexy "modern dances" at discos and nightclubs.

They often had to work more than 40 hours in a row and drink alcohol with and entertain the club's patrons, they told the Kunming newspaper.

In one case, Xiaomei, another of the eight girls, was presented with cocaine, but she managed to get away before being forced to take any, they said.

The girls had been promised a salary of 1,500 yuan ($192) per month, but they were not given any money. Their supervisor in Fuzhou told them that one third of the pay went to the school as part of their tuition, and the rest was meant to cover their living expenses.

"Those men (the patrons) were probably older than our fathers or even grandfathers, but they were so lusty," said Xiaoli, another of the girls.

"I didn't understand what I was actually doing until one of my colleagues at the club told me that our profession had nothing to do with art." The girls were apparently reluctant to tell their parents what had happened because the school warned them to communicate only with their teachers if they had any concerns about their internships.

Empty promise

However, after repeatedly calling their teachers and their headmaster, surnamed Wang, who promised to help, nothing was done.

After their case was uncovered by the Kunming newspaper the eight girls have returned home, but their school is still operating. One of its employees declined to comment when contacted by the China Daily.

When the Guilin school was exposed last November, its headmaster, Guo Guisheng, argued that it was not "inappropriate" for the girls to exchange toasts as a courtesy, and that he was "doing a good deed" as most of the students were from poor families.

The 22 girls from the Guilin school each earned 100 yuan (US$12.5) a night, with 50 yuan (US$7.5) going to an agent, 25 yuan (US$3.75) to the school and 25 yuan for themselves.

The Guilin Educational Bureau denounced the school as "negligent" after the arrangement was reported, and later the Ministry of Education revoked the school's license.

(China Daily March 1, 2007)