Coast Guard Administration (CGA) officers yesterday arrested eight female foreign nationals in Yunlin County on suspicion of offering sexual services at a karaoke bar.
The CGA said in a press statement that its officers busted a criminal group on April 25 that arranged for Vietnamese women to enter Taiwan and engage in prostitution.
CGA officers arrested 21 Vietnamese on suspicion of engaging in prostitution at the time and discovered the group had also arranged for other foreign nationals to work as prostitutes at hostess bars around the county.
Posing as customers, several CGA officers yesterday morning visited a karaoke bar. The officers revealed their true identities after the hostesses took off their clothes and began dancing naked in front of them while playing sex games.
The officers used hidden cameras to film the foreign hostesses as evidence of their actions.
The officers arrested four Vietnamese women and four Indonesian women at the bar.
However, while law officials are busy cracking down on illegal activities at hostess bars, prosecutors remain at odds over whether bar hostesses that offer sexual services in private rooms are breaking the law.
The debate emerged earlier this month, after a Miaoli prosecutor decided not to indict four foreign bar hostesses for playing sex games with their customers while in a private KTV room.
Miaoli prosecutors said that because the bar hostesses were in a private room when dancing naked, they had not committed public indecency.
The prosecutor said that the clause defines indecent behavior in public as behavior seen by unrelated individuals. But since the bar's private rooms are considered private places, the four Vietnamese hostesses therefore did not commit public indecency.
In other cases hostesses have been indicted for offering sexual services in private KTV rooms.
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