Sex workers have cautiously welcomed a government plan to legalize prostitution, but the scheme is being opposed by an alliance of women’s groups who fear it will breed crime and violence.
A legal sex zone similar to Amsterdam’s famed red-light district has been proposed for Taipei, with legal and zoning measures due in place within six months.
Prostitutes and their supporters say they see a ray of hope after many years of campaigning for legalization to protect them from both customers and police, but some are concerned about being moved into special zones.
PHOTO: AFP
“I hope the government will allow us to stay where we are and give us legal protection,” said one prostitute who wanted to be identified as Hsiao-feng. “I don’t want to move to a new place to start again.”
Hsiao-feng earns a living in Wanhua District, which is believed to be home to thousands of sex workers plying their trade illegally even though prostitution was outlawed in the city in 1997.
“Who wants to have red-light districts near their homes?” she said. “The government would have to put us in the mountains but then we can’t make a living because nobody wants to travel that far.”
PHOTO: AFP
Observers say paid-for sex remains big business and the ban has only driven it underground, where brothels operate under euphemistic names such as teahouses, massage parlors, clubs and even skin-care salons.
There are also women known as liu ying (流鶯, floating orioles) — a metaphor for flirtatious and seductive women — who find patrons on the streets.
There is no official record on the scale of Taiwan’s sex industry but the advocacy group Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (COSWAS) estimates that it involves 400,000 people and is worth NT$60 billion (US$1.8 billion) a year.
“Right now we are helpless when customers don’t pay, or even rob or hurt us,” Hsiao-feng said. “We have to watch out for the police and their informants because we can end up in prison if caught.”
Prostitutes face three days in detention or a fine of up to NT$30,000 if arrested, while their clients go unpunished.
“The government should protect sex workers’ human rights and stop treating them like criminals,” COSWAS chief Chung Chun-chu (鍾君竺) said. “It should allow a blanket decriminalization to regulate the sex trade.”
The public is divided on the issue, with 42.3 percent supporting the plan to legalize prostitution while 38.8 percent oppose it and the rest are undecided, a poll by the Chinese-language China Times found.
Arielle Su, an elementary school teacher in Taipei, says legalizing the sex trade cuts both ways.
“I think it can help prevent sex crimes as some people have needs and they would prey on the general public if they are unsatisfied,” she said. “But as a mother and a teacher I am also concerned that it would corrupt morals.”
A dozen local women’s groups have formed an alliance against legalizing prostitution, warning that it would encourage crime and injustice against women.
“We oppose making prostitution a legal industry because it fosters sexual violence and exploitation of women,” said Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容), head of The Garden of Hope Foundation.
Chi said that the Dutch authorities were reducing the size of Amsterdam’s red-light district because of concern over criminal activities such as human smuggling and money laundering.
“The government should offer welfare programs and job incentives to women so they won’t go into prostitution out of economic desperation,” Chi said.
Hsiao-feng, a 45-year-old divorcee, says it is difficult for streetwalkers like her, with little education and few job skills, to find regular work.
“I don’t like what I do for a living but I have to raise my children and pay the bills. I don’t regret becoming a sex worker. I just hope the government will protect my safety so I am not always at the mercy of others,” she said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching