Thu, Oct 18, 2001 page2

• Ma sets final time limit to stamp out local sex industry

  PROSTITUTION The Taipei City mayor, in response to a string of police extortion charges, is promising to shut down the sex industry within the city by February

  • By Ko Shu-ling / STAFF REPORTER
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  Facing a recent string of arrests of municipal policemen on extortion charges, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has vowed to drive the sex industry out of the city within three months.

  Apparently cool to the mayor's idea, a women's group has initiated a signature drive requesting the city to legalize the sex industry.

  Since Sept. 4, a total of seven municipal policemen have been suspected of running call-girl services and detaining prostitutes to extort money from their managers.

  The series of scandals infuriated Ma, who has issued an ultimatum to Wang Cho-chun (王卓鈞), director of Taipei City Police Headquarters, to take care of the problem of illegal prostitution within three months or face dismissal.

  Scheduled to deliver a special report on the recent police crackdown this morning, Ma said that short-term and long-term plans must be set up to tackle the city's problem of police corruption.

  "First of all, we'd conduct a comprehensive survey of municipal policemen who are or have been involved in extortion scandals. We mean it when we say we'd put suspects on trial if the evidence warrants doing so," he said.

  The city would also continue to stage an intensive crackdown on call-girl services and strengthen legal and moral education of policemen and the monitoring mechanisms of their supervisors.

  As long-term measures, Ma said the city would try to establish a 23-person anti-corruption unit targeting law enforcement officers as soon as the city council approves its proposal.

  In a bid to prevent more call girls, especially those from China, from entering Taiwan with false visas and engaging in the sex trade here, Ma said the city would pay regular visits to or conduct interviews with, if necessary, people of Chinese nationality who have a short stay in Taiwan.

  Last year, Taiwan saw over 100,000 short-term visitors from China.

  In addition, Ma said, the city would ask the central government to amend related laws to prevent foreign nationals -- especially women from China -- who have been repatriated from entering the country again.

  "We're thinking of adding preventive measures such as fingerprinting into the laws," Ma said.

  The Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (日日春關懷互助協會), however, said that the intensive crackdown does not at all solve the problems related to prostitution and police corruption.

  "Everybody, including the mayor, knows that the crackdown doesn't solve the problem but instead would only push sex workers to either go underground or go somewhere else," said Wang Fang-ping (王芳萍), chairwoman of the organization.

  Legalization, on the other hand, is the answer, Wang said.

  "Why not legalize the industry and make everything, including the profits, transparent?" she said.

  In addition, Wang said, law enforcement officers should not be made the sole unit responsible for tackling the prostitution problem.

  "It's like a monopoly. When the responsibility rests on only one party, it's very easy for the party to abuse its power," Wang said. "Besides, the police are already swamped with other duties such as public safety, traffic and crime prevention."
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