Although a legal amendment allowing local governments to set up red-light districts went into effect on Sunday, as of yesterday, no local authority had expressed willingness to designate special areas for the sex trade, meaning it is illegal for anyone in the country to buy or sell sex.
Under the revised Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), local governments can set up designated districts in which the sex trade would be legal, but any sexual transactions conducted outside these zones by both prostitutes and their customers could be fined up to NT$30,000.
The reasoning behind the revised law was to recognize that prostitution exists and allow the sex trade to be practiced legally in specific areas.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Police in New Taipei City (新北市) yesterday reported the first violation of the new law, in which a man and a woman were fined NT$1,500 each for engaging in illegal sex in a backroom inside a tea shop.
On Monday, district police officers said they face a tougher challenge in cracking down on illegal sex trade activities after the law was amended.
Police on the front line are less eager to crack down on the illegal sex trade because “it is more difficult to get people buying sex to confess they are guilty,” a policeman in Taipei said.
As customers were exempt from responsibility under the previous regulation, it was easier for police to secure their testimony against the women who served them and rack up arrests.
However, now, “who would want to confess they bought sex” outside legal sex trade zones, said the policeman, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Instead, police must use new investigation techniques to collect evidence of illegal sex transactions, including conducting separate interrogations and gathering evidence from the scene of the suspected act. Even then, it might not be enough to prove a violation occurred, the policeman said.
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