Since April 12, 26 foreign women have been arrested on suspicion of engaging in prostitution in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) after authorities began a campaign to crack down on the illegal sex industry, police said yesterday.
The women include 10 Chinese, five Vietnamese and four Thai nationals, all of whom arrived on tourist visas, the Taipei City Police Department’s Wanhua Precinct said.
The arrests came after police stepped up their investigation due to a reported influx of foreign women entering Taiwan as visitors and engaging in prostitution.
Most of them were staying in Wanhua, where prostitution thrives, despite being outlawed many years ago, police said.
Last month police raided an alleged prostitution ring in a hotel on Hankou Street and arrested 28 people, including 18 Thai nationals who had entered Taiwan as tourists, the precinct said.
Police said they carried out a comprehensive sweep early yesterday morning on Kangding Road near Wanhua Railway Station.
No one was arrested, but all of the suspected prostitutes were asked to leave the premises, police said.
Any foreigners who come to Taiwan on a tourist visa to engage in prostitution would be punished for contravening the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), police said, adding that they would be referred to the National Immigration Agency and deported.
None of the women entered Taiwan under the government’s “Kuan Hung Pilot Project,” they said.
The project is an electronic visa program designed to increase the number of quality tour groups from India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.
Wanhua is one of the oldest districts in Taipei. Prostitution was outlawed in 1997 by thenTaipei mayor Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
In other news, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) yesterday said that Taiwanese and Thai investigators on Friday arrested two Taiwanese for drug trafficking in Thailand and seized 15.85kg of heroin.
The CIB and the Thai Narcotics Suppression Bureau (NSB) recently formed an ad hoc team to crack down on Taiwanese drug smugglers.
The CIB’s International Criminal Affairs Division had received intelligence indicating that some Taiwanese in Thailand had tried to smuggle drugs to Taiwan, its overseas office in Thailand said.
The team targeted an alleged drug trafficker surnamed Chen (陳) as he arrived at Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok on Friday.
Investigators found about 7.2kg of heroin hidden in baby powder containers inside Chen’s luggage, the CIB said.
At about the same time, the NSB sent officers to a local hotel to arrest another Taiwanese suspect surnamed Hsieh (謝), where they seized 8.65kg of heroin, also disguised as baby powder, the CIB said.
The CIB would continue to cooperate with the NSB to track down the source of the heroin and the group in Taiwan responsible for the trafficking, it added.
GOOD DIPLOMACY: The KMT has maintained close contact with representative offices in Taiwan and had extended an invitation to Russia as well, the KMT said The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would “appropriately handle” the fallout from an invitation it had extended to Russia’s representative to Taipei to attend its international banquet last month, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday. US and EU representatives in Taiwan boycotted the event, and only later agreed to attend after the KMT rescinded its invitation to the Russian representative. The KMT has maintained long-term close contact with all representative offices and embassies in Taiwan, and had extended the invitation as a practice of good diplomacy, Chu said. “Some EU countries have expressed their opinions of Russia, and the KMT respects that,” he
CHANGES: After-school tutoring periods, extracurricular activities during vacations or after-school study periods must not be used to teach new material, the ministry said The Ministry of Education yesterday announced new rules that would ban giving tests to most elementary and junior-high school students during morning study and afternoon rest periods. The amendments to regulations governing public education at elementary schools and junior high schools are to be implemented on Aug. 1. The revised rules stipulate that schools are forbidden to use after-school tutoring periods, extracurricular activities during summer or winter vacation or after-school study periods to teach new course material. In addition, schools would be prohibited from giving tests or exams to students in grades one to eight during morning study and afternoon break periods, the
AMENDMENT: Contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau must be reported, and failure to comply could result in a prison sentence, the proposal stated The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) yesterday voted against a proposed bill by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers that would require elected officials to seek approval before visiting China. DPP Legislator Puma Shen’s (沈伯洋) proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), stipulate that contact with certain individuals in China, Hong Kong and Macau should be reported, while failure to comply would be punishable by prison sentences of up to three years, alongside a fine of NT$10 million (US$309,041). Fifty-six voted with the TPP in opposition
Advocates of the rights of motorcycle and scooter riders yesterday protested in front of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications in Taipei, making three demands. They were joined by 30 passenger vehicles, which surrounded the ministry to make three demands related to traffic regulations — that motorcycles and scooters above 250cc be allowed on highways, that all motorcycles and scooters be allowed on inside lanes, and that driver and rider training programs be reformed. The ministry said that it has no plans to allow motorcycles on national highways for the time being, and said that motorcycles would be allowed on the inner