Under the Japanese occupation, public debauchery was officially sanctioned, and there were nearly 4,000 legal brothels providing a miscellany of sexual services.

In many districts, sex workers could freely and openly solicit clients in the street.

The peak of unrestrained whoredom was reached after the conclusion of the War of Resistance against Japan, due to the insatiable demand of Kuomintang officials, magnates and soldiers who were sweeping into Shanghai.

After Liberation in 1949, with the rectification and reorganization of the social order, the practice of streetwalking, pimping and whoremongering was ordered eliminated. Women of ill-repute were to be reformed.

The mayor of Shanghai at the time, Chen Yi, stated: "Prostitutes suffer the most, for they live at the bottom of society. We must emancipate them, regardless of the great difficulties we may encounter."

Soon the police were carrying out strict inspections of the bordellos and licensing only those that passed the examination.

The Temporary Regulations for Administration of Prostitutes were drafted in July 1949 to standardize their work.

It became more and more difficult for the whorehouses, thriving as they did in an atmosphere of degradation and unbridled lust, to survive in such a regulatory environment.

By the end of 1950, there were a mere 156 houses of ill-fame - down from 522 before Liberation.

The Shanghai government never wavered in its high-principled work.

Happily, the bawdy-houses went bankrupt, one after the other.

By November 1951, only 72 such "sporting houses" remained.

And just 72 women were still plying their trade.

With the notable and successful effects of regulating these "white slaves," the city decided to go a step further and carry out a full-scale and comprehensive extermination of all cat-houses, "honky-tonks" or other places of prostitution - however popular these establishments might once have been.

The municipal Party Committee announced that brothels were illegal and were to be permanently shut down. Underground pick-up joints, too, were sealed off.

Between 1951 and 1958, a total of 7,513 Scarlet Women were successfully reformed. The girls gratefully turned away from the world's oldest profession, and became self-reliant working women.

This is the story of how immorality was successfully banished from Shanghai.

Indeed, by the end of 1951, the eradication of the flesh trade has been finised throughout the country. Tianjin and Beijing are two other cities where such work was successfully carried out.

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