Child and youth protection groups say more should be done to protect children from the Internet, which they say is helping to facilitate prostitution.
"Enjokosai" (
While prostitution is nothing new, the Internet is helping to make "enjokosai" popular among Taiwan's teenage girls, youth advocates say.
At a public forum yesterday, the Garden of Hope Foundation (勵馨基金會), ECPAT-Taiwan (終止童妓協會) and the Good Shepherd Welfare Service (天主教善牧中心) jointly called for measures to protect children from cyberporn and the growing trend of sexual transactions via the Internet.
The groups say the "enjokosai" practitioners prefer to attract patrons via the Net because of its secret nature. They say it's easy for teenage girls to post their information to bulletin boards, community Web sites, chat rooms or personal sites, from which potential patrons can access the information.
Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華), with the Garden of Hope Foundation, said an estimated 30 percent of the Internet "enjokosai" practitioners are students, mostly from vocational schools or night schools.
Many of the teenage girls do not regard themselves as full-time sex workers or as conventional prostitutes, but see it as a "part-time" job that satisfies their financial needs.
Yeh said that, on the basis of their field investigations, a majority of the teenagers are between 16 and 22 and attempting to earn money in a short amount of time.
"Unlike those prostitutes who are forced into the trade, these young girls do it on their own volition. Whenever they need money, they take a case via the Net," Yeh said. "In general, they would get about NT$4,000 per case."
Because it's quite easy, Yeh said, some girls have become full-time sex workers and thus risk contracting sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies.
The groups urged the government to set up an evaluation committee on Internet ethics in order to better protect children.
Cyber law professionals called for more regulation during the discussion yesterday. They suggested that Internet users be required to have ID numbers. That way, law enforcers could track down patrons of young girls or suspects in other types of cyber crimes.
Those participating in the discussion also noted that the law was insufficient when it came to protecting children from pornography, or restraining Web sites from posting obscene photos of minors on the Net.
While calling for the enhancement of legal measures against child porn, the groups suggested that measures such as filtering or rating systems could be used to prevent children from accessing porn on the Net.
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