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Prostitutes slam mayor, demand right to work on

A group of prostitutes and advocates for the rights of sex workers yesterday denounced Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for depriving prostitutes of their right to work and urged the Taipei City Govern-ment to legitimize prostitution.

After Taipei criminalized prostitution in 1997, the brothels in Wanhua District (萬華) closed. But the ban, sex workers and advocates said, has driven prostitution underground, and the city government's clampdown on illegal prostitutes has left many in a severe plight and driven some to suicide.

"Banning prostitution violates the spirit of the Constitution, which protects [the people's] right to work. The city government should help us seek solutions, instead of dodging the responsibility by saying that it can do nothing but follow the law," said Wang Fang-ping (王芳萍), general director of the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters, during a meeting with Ma at Taipei City Hall.

Wang said that he city government has clamped down on 9,796 illegal prostitutes over the past seven years in accordance with the Law of Maintaining Public Order (社會秩序法), and collected NT$44 million (US$ 1.3 million) in fines.

Of the 128 prostitutes in the city, more than 66 percent went underground after the law was promulgated, while 6.4 percent committed suicide, Wang said.

As current laws punish prostitutes, but not brothel owners or pimps, Wang said that the city government should defend the livelihoods of the disadvantaged group, legalize prostitution in the city and push for the central government to do the same.

Ma, citing the example of thriving illegal brothels in the Netherlands despite the legalization of prostitution, argued that the city government had no choice but to follow the law.

"Legalizing prostitution would spark controversy ... It will also take a long time before the public can accept licensed brothels being set up in their districts," Ma told the group.

After then mayor Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) announced a curb on the industry, licensed prostitutes staged several protests until Ma granted them a two-year grace period in 1999. The lights in Datong and other brothel districts finally went out in 2001, but the trade continued underground.

The city government has spent about NT$63 million to provide job training and employment search services to workers in the sex industry. Some say, however, that they had found it hard to survive in other industries given their lack of skills and fear of discrimination.

"We used to rely on ourselves to make money. Now we are wasting taxpayers' money. Why don't you just legalize prostitution?" said Li Chun, a prostitute who only wanted to be identified by her nickname.

Ma promised to hold public hearings, inviting sex workers and legislators to raise public awareness on the issue before pushing for amending the laws.

"It took Holland 200 years before prostitution was legalized. Don't think that it's easy to change public attitude towards prostitution. This is a problem that can't be solved quickly," he said.
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