For a 24-year-old Chinese woman surnamed Liu, it was the opportunity to earn money that brought her to this side of the Taiwan Strait.
The graduate of Normal University in Sichuan Province made just 1,000 yuan (NT$4,200) a month teaching elementary school -- a job many in China consider to be well-paid.
But as a prostitute in Taiwan, she earns considerably more in just a single session with a client.
PHOTO: LIAO RAY-SHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
On most nights, Liu sees five to six men -- earning between NT$6,000 and NT$8,000 per session.
"Most of these Chinese girls will return to China after they think they've earned enough money," said a Taipei police officer, who asked not to be identified. "Very few of them will quit prostitution and stay in Taiwan afterwards."
According to police sources, more and more women are coming from China to work as prostitutes. While there are no hard numbers, one city councilor estimates that at least 500 prostitutes from China are working in Taipei today.
A shared culture and language makes China an ideal source for brothel owners to find prostitutes to work in Taiwan, police say.
But while the world's oldest profession is nothing new in Taiwan -- barber shops that have never cut a lock of hair flourish around the country -- what is new is a growing intolerance toward the sex industry.
Embarrassed by allegations of police officers colluding with the sex industry, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) -- like his predecessor, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) -- has vowed to do something.
Earlier this month, Ma promised to rid Taipei of the sex industry within three months.
On Oct. 20, roughly 200 illegal Chinese immigrants were deported from Matsu. Of those, about 50 were prostitutes.
Still, many doubt Ma will be successful in his efforts to drive out the sex industry.
And women's groups such as the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters say legislation should be introduced to legalize prostitution. They say crackdowns will do little but push the sex industry further underground, nor will it solve the problem of police corruption.
Fake marriages
According to police statistics, many Chinese prostitutes come to Taiwan through fake marriages or human smugglers.
Liu, who arrived in September, told police after her arrest that her "husband" paid NT$250,000 to a human trafficker for her to be brought to Taiwan.
After arriving, she started to work for her "husband" in order to pay back her fees.
"I need more money," Liu said. "My fake husband said that I have to pay him back so I can keep my own money instead of working for him."
Police say that many brothels use contract taxi drivers, who double as bodyguards, to deliver women to hotels or any location chosen by the customer.
Sometimes, a prostitute marries a driver to receive legal status in Taiwan. But in most cases a Chinese prostitute never meets her legal husband during her stay in Taiwan.
According to the Taipei police officer, marriage to a Taiwan national isn't enough to keep a Chinese prostitute from being deported.
"If a Chinese prostitute enters Taiwan via marriage, no matter whether the relationship is genuine or not, the police will submit the case to the Bureau of Immigration under the Ministry of the Interior," the officer said.
"When the paperwork is done, the case will be sent back to the police again for further investigation," he said. "Then the Chinese prostitute will be deported. The entire process will take approximately five days if the paperwork travels fast."
NT$4.5 Billion a year
According to estimates by New Party City Councilor Lee Hsin (李新), there are roughly 500 Chinese prostitutes working in Taipei.
The group is estimated to earn NT$12.5 million in profits for the sex industry daily, with each woman seeing about five clients a day at NT$5,000 per session. That works out to about NT$4.5 billion per year.
Most Chinese prostitutes after their arrest are sent to a detention center in Hsinchu, which is officially the nation's only illegal-immigrant detention center for women. There are two other centers for men.
But in recent weeks, due to Ma's crackdown, the Hsinchu center has been packed, and some detainees have been sent to the nation's other two detention centers in Ilan and Matsu.
Before a woman is deported, prosecutors investigate whether she was involved in any other crime.
In the meantime, detainees must wait for the Chinese Red Cross Society to schedule ships between Matsu and Xiamen or Kinmen and Xiamen.
On average, Chinese immigrants are held for roughly four months before being sent home.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
RESILIENCE: Taiwan plays a key role in semiconductors, energy, information infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, AIT Director Raymond Greene said Taiwan’s continued investment in deterrence and resilience remains vital, especially in uncrewed systems and other emerging technologies, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday. Greene made the remarks at the annual National Strategic Summit on Supply Chain Resilience held by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), a government-backed think tank. As Taiwan last year became the US’ fourth-largest trading partner and supply chain security is becoming more important, cooperation in emerging technologies continues to deepen between the two countries, he said. The US is committed to accelerating innovation, building key infrastructure, strengthening cooperation
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
RSS