The Alliance against Sexual Exploitation yesterday urged the government to put to a referendum a plan by the Ministry of the Interior to legalize prostitution in designated areas.
“We are opposed to making prostitution an industry and a job, because the sex trade is essentially exploitation of the female body,” Lee Li-fen (李麗芬), secretary--general of End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism Taiwan, one of the alliance’s member groups, told a news conference at the legislature yesterday morning.
“The ministry is trying to shirk its responsibility by saying it respects local governments and authorizing them to decide whether to create prostitution zones in their city or county,” Lee said. “If the ministry really cares about what local residents think, they should put the issue ... to a referendum.”
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Taiwan Women’s Link secretary-general Tsai Wan-fen (蔡宛芬) said that creating red light districts would not resolve social issues related to the sex industry, such as crime.
Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation executive director Kang Shu-hua (康淑華) said if the government cared about economically disadvantaged women’s right to work, it should come up with other solutions.
“Rather than legalizing the sex industry to open [work opportunities] for the economically disadvantaged, as government officials have put it, the ministry should come up with actions to improve women’s welfare and ameliorate employment conditions for women,” Kang said. “Allowing women to sell their bodies isn’t helping.”
The ministry announced on Wednesday that after a clause in the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) banning prostitution expires in November, it would allow local governments to set up special districts in which the sex trade would be permitted, while selling or buying sex services outside those areas would be prohibited by law.
The policy has drawn sharp criticism from groups that support and oppose the legalization of the sex industry, with one side saying the measures are too restrictive, while the other said the sex industry should not be legalized at all.Economically disadvantaged women need jobs, but not sex jobs,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) said. “The sex industry neither satisfies the needs of economically disadvantaged women, nor does it protect the rights of sex workers. It only satisfies men’s desires.”
Huang has proposed legislation penalizing clients, rather than the service provider, in the sex trade.
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would
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,
Starlux Airlines on Tuesday announced it is to launch new direct flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Ontario, California, on June 2. The carrier said it plans to deploy the new-generation Airbus A350 on the Taipei-Ontario route. The Airbus A350 features a total of 306 seats, including four in first class, 26 in business class, 36 in premium economy and 240 in economy. According to Starlux’s initial schedule, four flights would run between Taoyuan and Ontario per week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Flights are to depart from Taoyuan at 8:05pm and arrive in California at 5:05pm (local time), while return flights
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
RSS