The Cabinet’s latest economy-booster was roundly rejected by several local governments on Thursday, and rightly so, after it approved a draft law to allow local governments to set up red-light districts.
Taipei, New Taipei City (新北市), Greater Taichung, Greater Kaohsiung and Greater Tainan were quick to say they had no plans to designate sex-trade zones or allow the establishment of more brothels than the 11 legal ones that currently exist.
The Ministry of the Interior’s proposal would allow prostitution in urban commercial zones or non-urban districts zoned for leisure use. Both prostitutes and their clients could be fined for soliciting in a public place.
The plan has been driven by the Council of Grand Justices’ 2009 ruling that penalizing unlicensed prostitutes, but not their clients, was unconstitutional. It ordered that the relevant Articles in the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) be scrapped within two years.
It is wrong to punish a sex worker and not the would-be client, but establishing more brothels is not the answer, especially since the trafficking of women and children internationally for sex has become such a huge problem over the past two decades.
For Taipei, legalizing the industry would be a huge step backwards to the days when the city was as renowned for its sex trade as Bangkok or Pattaya are today.
Taipei’s history of licensed prostitution dates back to the Japanese colonial era. The trade grew after the arrival of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government and its soldiers, and it flourished during the Vietnam War when US troops flocked to Taipei for rest and relaxation. Then there were the planes full of Japanese and South Koreans who used to head straight for Beitou’s hot springs, while Snake Alley did a booming business in snake blood drinks for men who needed some extra energy before visiting a brothel.
The economic boom of the late 1980s and early 1990s saw multi-story “barbershops” pop up — prominent reminders that the sex trade was far bigger than government figures on legal brothels indicated.
There was an outcry when former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) shut hundreds of hostess bars, hotels, barbershops and brothels when he was Taipei mayor. The few remaining licensed prostitutes complained about being thrown out of work, but the real cost of the trade has always been borne by young girls, many of whom were Aborigines.
Research undertaken by the Garden of Hope on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior in 1991 found that there were 60,000 girls aged between 12 and 17 working as prostitutes in the country, with most having been sold into prostitution by their parents.
The Prevention of Child and Juvenile Sexual Trafficking Act (兒童及少年性交易防治條例) passed in 1995 helped put an end to child prostitution, but trafficking has become a major problem, with women from China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and elsewhere smuggled or brought in under the guise of marriage.
No one should forget the snakeheads who dumped their cargo into the sea off Tunghsiao (通霄), Miaoli County, as they were chased by the coast guard on Aug. 26, 2003 — 22 Chinese women being brought to Taiwan to work as prostitutes were tossed overboard and four died.
The ministry has said the public favors conditional legalization of the sex industry so it can be officially regulated. This sounds very much like trying to pass the buck. “Decriminalizing” prostitution does not eliminate the criminal element from the business — or end the horrific abuse of women and children.
Legislators should bin the bill the first opportunity they get.
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