Several sex worker advocacy groups yesterday staged a protest in front of the Ministry of the Interior, demanding that the government decriminalize prostitution and enact a new law to protect the right to sex among consenting adults.
Wearing face masks and red headbands with slogans that read “Legalize the sex industry,” protesters from the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (COSWAS), the Gender/Sexuality Rights Association of Taiwan and Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association called on the government to heed the needs of the minorities by abolishing Article 80 of the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), which stipulates that any one intending to profit through performance of a sexual act is subject to a three-day detention or fine of up to NT$30,000.
“Sex workers are victims of the bad economy. We are pleading with the government to take care of us — the minority who are struggling to stay afloat,” COSWAS secretary Chian Chia-ying (簡嘉瑩) said.
Chian said the government should follow the trend of many developed countries by legalizing prostitution and not penalizing sex workers and their patrons.
Instead of continuing to ignore their plight, the government should protect their right to work in a clean and safe environment, the protesters said.
They proposed a new law to legitimize sex as a form of trade among consenting adults, saying such a law would protect the rights of sex workers and remove the public stigma attached to the industry.
The ministry held a public hearing on the issue of problems faced by sex workers yesterday morning. No resolution was reached, but a ministry official promised that the issue would be further discussed after the legislative recess.
In September 1997, former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), then mayor of Taipei, banned brothels, which had been legal in the city, in an effort to curb the growing sex trade.
COSWAS said that decision had devastated the lives of many sex workers, who had no other way to make a living. Forced to continue working illegally, the workers lost all legal options for recourse if they were hurt or cheated by customers, it said.
Before the clampdown, prostitutes could charge customers between NT$800 and NT$1,000 for 15 minutes and could demand their customers wear condoms or else refuse to have sex with them.
After the crackdown, working conditions have deteriorated drastically, COSWAS said, with most prostitution rings controlled by organized crime.
In 1999, when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) became mayor of Taipei, he granted a two-year grace period for the remaining brothels to close shop.
Taiwan might be China’s next target after it has “walled off” Hong Kong from the rest of the world with its new national security legislation, Academia Sinica Institute of Sociology fellow Wu Jieh-min (吳介民) said on Thursday. At a seminar organized by the Economic Democracy Union, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the Hong Kong Outlanders and the Judicial Reform Foundation, Wu said that the legislation is simultaneously a fig leaf concealing Beijing’s autocratic rule in Hong Kong and a figurative “Berlin Wall,” denying democratic countries access to Hong Kong. Wu said it is evident that Taiwan would be China’s next target. The
SAFETY CONCERNS: A construction company working nearby admitted to negligence in the incident, and is to pay a fine and other expenses related to damages Residents of homes adjacent to an alleyway in New Taipei City’s Yonghe District (永和) on Saturday were forced to evacuate their homes after the road collapsed, the New Taipei City government said yesterday. An 80m by 4m area in an alleyway on Wenhua Road (文化路) collapsed at 10:39am near an apartment building construction site where work was being done on the project’s foundation. The incident also ruptured an underground gas pipe and tilted several buildings in the area. Residents would not be able to return to their homes until tomorrow or Wednesday, when repairs are expected to be finished, the city government said. Workers
CHALLENGER DEEP: Lin Ying-Tsong was invited by Caladan Oceanic founder Victor Vescovo to join him on a 10-hour long trip in the company’s submersible Taiwanese-American Lin Ying-Tsong (林穎聰) last month became the first person from Asia and the 12th in human history to dive into the deepest part on Earth, the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench. Lin, 45, an expert in deep sea acoustics with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts, joined US adventurer and Caladan Oceanic founder Victor Vescovo, 54, on June 22 in a descent to the central pool of the Challenger Deep, the deepest point of the trench, which lies at a depth of more than 10,900m. The pair made the descent in a submersible named Limiting Factor, a US$37
ARMS RACE: Two DPP lawmakers said that China’s development model differed from Taiwan’s, as it aims to become a global hegemon, while Taiwan seeks to protect itself Taiwanese national defense experts are split on how Taiwan should respond to the ever-growing budget of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), with some advocating for Taiwan to increase defense spending, while others say that little can be done. The Legislative Yuan approved NT$358 billion (US$12.1 billion) for national defense spending across fiscal 2020, a 3.47 percent increase compared with last year, while China’s military budget this year is NT$5.4 trillion, more than 15 times that of Taiwan. Regardless of whether the government adopts a zero-based budgeting method for national defense spending — in which all expenses are justified and approved each
RSS