On the 10th anniversary of the banning of prostitution, around 100 former sex workers and their supporters staged a demonstration in front of the Presidential Office yesterday to demand legalization of the sex industry in Taipei City.
Protesters, who included sex workers, gathered on Ketagelan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office and burned a picture of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
The protesters were stopped by the police as they attempted to march towards the Presidential Office, and a minor scuffle occurred.
PHOTO: LIU HSIN-DE, TAIPEI TIMES
During Chen's stint as Taipei mayor, Chen abolished the prostitution licensing system on Sept. 6, 1997.
As Taipei was the only city that had an ordinance to regulate the sex industry, the abolition of the decades-old licensing system therefore put an end to legal prostitution in the country.
Although many people approved of the decision, it has created many problems.
"After prostitution was banned, many of our sisters became illegal workers, because they all have families to feed and they don't know anything else," a former licensed sex worker nicknamed Ching (
"Many of them ended up committing suicide because of the enormous economic pressure and the fear of prosecution," she said.
Of the 16 sex workers that the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (COSWAS) has been tracking for 10 years, three have already committed suicide due to economic pressure and long-term unemployment.
Ching said she herself is NT$3 million (US$90,000) in debt.
For those who turned to illegal prostitution, they have more to fear than the police.
"In the past [when prostitution was legal], we could pick our customers, we could call the police when we had non-paying customers," Ching said. "The regulation even stipulated that we got 70 percent of the revenue while their madams got 30 percent."
However, illegal sex workers today can no longer choose their customers, can do nothing when customers don't pay, and are often exploited by their madams, Ching said.
"They [sex workers] wouldn't hurt anyone, they're only trying to make a living. We'd like to call on the government to legalize the sex industry so they can have a safer and more secure work environment," a COSWAS secretary surnamed Chen said.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS