Earlier this month, police received a tip-off that sex was being solicited along Taijiangyang Zhong Road in Fuzhou, Fujian, and that most of the prostitutes were in their 50s and 60s.  Police followed some women who were suspected of being prostitutes, and discovered that they were even soliciting sex during the day on a stretch of the road.

When police raided the building which the women were emerging from, they found that three rooms on the second and third floors were being used for prostitution. In one room on the second floor, two men and two women were found together naked on a small bed. A large stash of condoms was also found. At the same time, the 85 year-old, identified as Lin, was found with a 62 year-old prostitute, the oldest woman the city has ever arrested for prostitution.

After being arrested, Lin told police he would accept punishment, but tearfully begged them not to tell his family because he “could not face them.”  Aside from Lin, two other prostitutes and two other Johns were also arrested.

A policeman told the Fuzhou Evening Post that society needed to stop marginalizing old people and be more sensitive to their needs.

Once stigmatized as a sign of lack of filial piety, an increasing number of Chinese are putting their elderly parents in retirement homes as the country develops and people’s working lives get busier.