Civil rights and women's groups are divided about the Ministry of the Interior's plan to decriminalize the sex industry.
The ministry announced in January that it would push for an amendment to Article 80 of the Social Order Maintenance Law (
"The legalization of the sex industry still needs more discussion. From a human rights point of view it is unfair to only punish the prostitutes, while their clients go free," Chiu Ju-na (
Since 1997, when then Taipei mayor Chen Shui-bian (
These groups are divided into two camps that each hold a different opinion on the sex industry. One side, led by The Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (
The other side, led by The Garden of Hope Foundation and the End Child Prostitution Association in Taiwan (
"The Collective has always been pushing for legalization, decriminalization and normalization of the sex industry, and the first step to that would be decriminalization of the sex workers," said Wang Fang-ping (王芳萍), the Collective's secretary-general.
Wang said that penalizing the clients would amount to the same thing as penalizing the prosti-tutes, and that the sex trade would not go away just because of the penalties.
She discounted the public perception that prostitution was only about simple physical needs, saying it involved complicated cultural and psychological problems.
"Many clients are working-class men who cannot find intimate partners. They face great pressure and feel depressed, and prostitution has become a way for them to deal with this," Wang said.
"Many sex workers have told me that they are actually selling fantasy, rather than sex, because their customers have problems with reality," she said.
The Collective is organizing a march on Feb. 7 to call for the decriminalization of the sex industry as part of the Fourth International Sex Workers' Culture Festival.
But Hwang Shu-ling (
Hwang, who recently completed a study on prostitution, said: "In my research it can be clearly seen that men who seek sex from prostitutes range from big bosses to laborers. The clients exist in every occupation. The richer ones actually visit prostitutes more often than poorer ones."
Hwang further disagrees with Wang about prostitutes' clients not being able to find intimate partners. She has found that many clients have multiple sexual partners, and not necessarily on a paying basis.
According to Hwang, society is paying for the effects of the sex trade, and blamed the prostitutes' clients for this.
"Society is paying for prostitutes' check-ups for sexually transmitted diseases, and there are also extra costs incurred in providing shelter to underage prostitutes. The tragedy of snakeheads smuggling Chinese prostitutes [to Taiwan] is a result of the demand for prostitutes. If there's no need, there's no market," Hwang said.
She also pointed out that there was a vital difference between men who seek the services of prostitutes and men who do not.
"Men who like to pay for sex tend to think it is better to legalize the sex industry," Hwang said.
The women's groups opposing the legalization of the sex industry are planning a visit to the Ministry of the Interior today to discuss the government's position on the issue and to reassert their own opinions.
"We want the sex industry downsized, the prostitutes decriminalized, and the clients and the brothel owners penalized," Garden of Hope Foundation director Chi Hui-jung (
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
RSS