The simply furnished ground-floor apartment tucked down a narrow, shabby street in Taipei's rundown Datong District looks like an ordinary home. Only the many posters and photographs of women displaying their breasts or legs that hang on the wall reveal its inner secrets.
About 20 years ago the women in these pictures openly greeted patrons coming to the doors of their brothels along the street; the red light district not only thrived but was legal between 1956 and 1997, and men would pay up to NT$1,000 for 15-minute visits.
The keys to the flat on Datong's Gueisuei Street are now in the hands of Wang Fang-ping (
Fighting for change
"Sex workers are stigmatized and they are scapegoats in society, which is unfair. I hope to change this unfair social structure by fighting for the legalization of prostitution," said Wang, whose persuasive, almost aggressive speech has been hardened from years of public advocacy.
After the Taipei City Government criminalized prostitution in 1997 the brothels along Gueisuei Street closed. But paid-for sex remains big business in Taiwan, with Wang estimating the industry to be worth at least NT$1 trillion (US$30 billion) per year. Rather than solve the problem, the ban has driven it underground, she said.
Licensed brothels were also legal in other parts of the nation, though the numbers were declining by the time of the Taipei shutdown. Now, according to Wang, there are less than 100 licensed prostitutes in seven or eight counties.
Wang is battling to change the public and legal perceptions of prostitutes, a struggle that mirrors her own coming to terms with the sex trade.
In 1997, while she was working as a labor union leader, she saw some 100 licensed prostitutes or gongchang (
"When I first saw them on TV, I was surprised and puzzled. Why were they fighting for their rights? Why didn't they just switch to `normal' jobs?" Wang recalls.
She contacted the women and learned some surprising truths.
"They told me they chose prostitution of their free will and it was their job, their profession," Wang said.
The government and women's rights groups at that time were insisting that these women were exploited and must be rescued from prostitution. But Wang says that most if not all of the women who worked at the licensed brothels were either divorced or widowed. They had little education or job skills, and financial burdens to meet.
"They didn't steal. They didn't rob. They relied on themselves to make money. They didn't think sex work was bad. But they were forced out of their jobs in order to be `saved.' It's like breaking their legs and then saving them," Wang said, her voice rising in anger.
Jobs taken away
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