Day and night they wander the streets, waiting to be picked up by passers-by. The younger ones trade on their beauty and allure, but more eye-catching are those who look older than 60, wearing heavy make-up and quietly enticing patrons.
With the economic downturn, the number of streetwalkers has increased. As the country bans prostitution, they are vulnerable to arbitrary arrest by police or exploitation by unscrupulous pimps and patrons.
The legal system only punishes prostitutes, not their clients, and mainly targets women who walk the streets looking for customers rather than women who work in bars or clubs.
Prostitutes working at cabarets, private clubs or other entertainment facilities are generally well protected by gangs and even some political figures.
UNSYMPATHETIC
The streetwalkers, on the other hand, are on their own, easy prey for police desperate to meet arrest quotas and left to battle an unsympathetic legal framework rarely seen anywhere else in the world, said Chen Mei-hua (陳美華), an assistant professor at Tunghai University’s Department of Sociology in Taichung County.
Once they are arrested, they can be slapped with a fine of up to NT$30,000 or detained for three days.
“Either way, it’s like adding frost to their economic hardships,” she said.
That could change as President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration may consider decriminalizing prostitution, and it is asking the public to chime in.
In line with Ma’s campaign promise to promote “deliberative democracy,” the Research, Evaluation and Development Commission has commissioned Lin Kuo-ming (林國明), an associate professor at National Taiwan University’s Department of Sociology, to organize a “consensus conference” in November on whether prostitutes should be exempt from punishment.
Even among prostitutes and welfare group representatives, there is no consensus on the issue. Some support the idea, others want patrons to be punished rather than prostitutes, and there are those who hope prostitution will be fully legalized.
But they all agree that change is necessary.
A-lan, a former prostitute now in her 50s, complained that in recent years, police have become more active in harrying streetwalkers.
“Some streetwalkers were jailed for two weeks and some develop obsessive-compulsive disorders because of the frequent police crackdowns,” she said.
Sometimes, A-lan said, police “visit” them 10 times a day.
“Even without evidence, they want to arrest us to help polish their work records. We might be arrested even when we’re eating at a street noodle booth. We may be unwelcome in society, but our basic human rights should still be respected,” she said.
“A normal office worker uses a pen to work. We use a part of our body to work. Why should we be stigmatized?” she said.
A-lan said she keenly hopes that prostitution can be legalized and a special zone designated to house brothels. By so doing, all prostitutes could join forces to protect each other.
“Without a systematic or institutionalized protective mechanism, we have no way to seek justice if we are beaten, robbed or raped,” A-lan said, adding that she hoped a legal system would be crafted to regulate prostitution.
“With legislation, patrons will behave better and will not dare to bully us,” she said.
Sandy Yeh (葉毓蘭), head of the Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation, said she was very sympathetic toward underprivileged streetwalkers and fully supported the proposal to decriminalize prostitution.
“Only those who patronize underage prostitutes or who knowingly patronize those who entered prostitution under duress should be penalized,” Yeh said.
EQUAL PUNISHMENT
But Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容), chief executive of the Garden of Hope Foundation, was more reserved about the proposal.
She said that patrons — even disabled or underprivileged ones — should be punished if the law is to be amended.
“They form an integral part of the exploitation network,” Chi said. “Without the demand, there would be no supply.”
Nevertheless, Chi acknowledged that those who most deserve punishment are the pimps, door guards and sex trade bosses.
The unfair legal system has its roots in the “contrivance” of male legislators in 1992, said Chung Chun-chu (鐘君竺), chief executive officer of the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (COSWAS).
Before the Act Governing the Punishment of Police Offenses (違警罰法) was abolished in 1992 as part of the nation’s democratization movement at the time, both prostitutes and patrons were subject to penalties.
While screening a new bill to replace the invalidated law, a group of male lawmakers deleted provisions penalizing those who patronize prostitutes.
As a result, the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) only mandates punitive measures for prostitutes.
“Taiwan is almost the only country in the world that punishes prostitutes while imposing no penalties on their clients,” Chung said.
A COSWAS study showed that Sweden punishes only patrons, not prostitutes, and such a practice is believed to have prompted its sex industry to go underground.
In Japan, the US and China, both prostitutes and patrons are held accountable.
What is clear is that attempts to ban prostitution have not stemmed the problem.
In 1997, then-Taipei mayor Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) outlawed prostitution as part of his campaign promise to wipe out the sex industry in the city.
“Although the city government offered subsidies for formerly licensed prostitutes and launched a program to help them turn to other professions, the measures were not sufficient to keep women off the streets,” Chung said.
Citing a COSWAS survey, Chung said more than 70 percent of them failed to build new careers and eventually returned to their old trade.
“One of the major obstacles lies in their limited education ... [some were] illiterate,” she said.
Despite a nationwide ban imposed on prostitution in 1999, the practice has continued to grow, especially in recent years as the economy has lost steam.
Social welfare workers like Chung are reluctant to provide numbers, afraid that the police will use them to reset arrest targets.
But those in the trade say the trend is unmistakable.
One 50-something streetwalker in Taipei nicknamed Hsiao-feng recalled that when she entered the sex trade eight years ago, there were about 50 of her peers vying for business in the same district, the oldest of whom was 50 or so.
“But the number has since swollen to 300 to 400, with quite a few in their 70s or even 80s,” she said.
LICENSED BROTHELS
There are still pockets of legal prostitution in the country today, with 14 licensed brothels in eight cities and counties around the country.
These were exempted from the ban and can operate until their owners die or the businesses die of attrition.
The rights enjoyed by their 54 licensed prostitutes, all of whom are in their 50s or 60s, are the envy of streetwalkers — they are not harrassed by the police, are given regular health checkups by the government and are afforded the protection of the law.
Whether those rights will become a reality for the others depends on the outcome of public hearings to be held later this year and the government’s determination to address the problem.
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