Sex may soon be for sale legally again in Taiwan. The government
Sex may soon be for sale legally again in Taiwan. The government is likely to end a 20-year-old ban that penalizes prostitutes, but not their clients, by the end of the year.
The world’s oldest profession will still come with some strict rules, however. It will be restricted to red-light districts, away from residential and religious zones. Brothels and sex workers will be required to apply for licenses and prostitutes will have to undergo periodic health checks.
The interior ministry is putting the final touches to a draft Bill that will be unveiled next week and submitted to the Executive Yuan, or Cabinet, in mid-May.
“We cannot allow the sex trade to pervade the city,” said Liu Wen-shih, counselor and executive secretary of the ministry’s legal affairs committee, which is drawing up the Bill.
Still, supporters of the trade want more. They argue that such rules continue to stigmatize the trade and encourage a thriving underground sex industry that numbers as many as 100,000 workers by some estimates.
“As many as 80 per cent of sex workers are forced to ply their trade under the guise of masseuses, bar hostesses and so on,” said Wang Fang-ping, secretary-general of Coswas, short for Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters.
“Sexual transactions are just a form of commercial transaction and should be seen as a normal industry.”
Prostitution was banned in 1991 under the Social Order Maintenance Act. Under Article 80 on “penalties for damaging benign social mores”, any individual who engages in sexual conduct or cohabitation for financial gain can be detained not more than three days, or fined not more than NT$30,000 (US$1,033).