A group of prostitutes and advocates for the rights of sex workers yesterday denounced Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for depriving prostitutes of their right to work and urged the Taipei City Govern-ment to legitimize prostitution.
After Taipei criminalized prostitution in 1997, the brothels in Wanhua District (
"Banning prostitution violates the spirit of the Constitution, which protects [the people's] right to work. The city government should help us seek solutions, instead of dodging the responsibility by saying that it can do nothing but follow the law," said Wang Fang-ping (
Wang said that he city government has clamped down on 9,796 illegal prostitutes over the past seven years in accordance with the Law of Maintaining Public Order (
Of the 128 prostitutes in the city, more than 66 percent went underground after the law was promulgated, while 6.4 percent committed suicide, Wang said.
As current laws punish prostitutes, but not brothel owners or pimps, Wang said that the city government should defend the livelihoods of the disadvantaged group, legalize prostitution in the city and push for the central government to do the same.
Ma, citing the example of thriving illegal brothels in the Netherlands despite the legalization of prostitution, argued that the city government had no choice but to follow the law.
"Legalizing prostitution would spark controversy ... It will also take a long time before the public can accept licensed brothels being set up in their districts," Ma told the group.
After then mayor Chen Shui-bian (
The city government has spent about NT$63 million to provide job training and employment search services to workers in the sex industry. Some say, however, that they had found it hard to survive in other industries given their lack of skills and fear of discrimination.
"We used to rely on ourselves to make money. Now we are wasting taxpayers' money. Why don't you just legalize prostitution?" said Li Chun, a prostitute who only wanted to be identified by her nickname.
Ma promised to hold public hearings, inviting sex workers and legislators to raise public awareness on the issue before pushing for amending the laws.
"It took Holland 200 years before prostitution was legalized. Don't think that it's easy to change public attitude towards prostitution. This is a problem that can't be solved quickly," he said.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RSS