Taiwan Decriminalizes Prostitution

Politics Taiwan Politics
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[quote=“Toe Tag”][quote=“ScottSommers”]There are groups that have women members that have spoken in support of regulated prostitution in Taiwan. These groups have even claimed they were motivated by the welfare and sex rights of prostitutes. If you look at other political activities of the membership, what you find is that it fits well into the traditional Green/Blue split. Groups that were founded to address women’s rights issues and whose members have been consistently politically active addressing these issues do not support decriminalized and regulated prostitution.

You may have found an exception to this. I would need to know more detailed information about the membership of the group you refer to.[/quote]The article in the OP says "'The government should protect sex workers’ human rights and stop treating them like criminals,” COSWAS chief Chung Chun-chu (鍾君竺) said. “It should allow a blanket decriminalization to regulate the sex trade.”

Is it accurate to summarize that you are opposed to the change, and argue that Taiwan cannot be compared to any other countries, and thus isolated, all local women’s groups are opposed, and any group in favor either lacks women or has a partisan agenda. I am not sure you read the articles in my original post, which mention that many prostitutes, individually and collectively, want the change. And also that the government relied on studies from academia.

If anyone is interested in the perspective of the (foreign) male, I refer you to internationalsexguide.info where the feeling seems to be, there are 35 year olds at Caesar’s, there are ugly girls in the shacks in Sanchong, Taiwan in general and Taipei in specific have the worst whoring in Asia, and you’re better off just flying to ANY other place in Asia, though the locals do OK here if you are well connected.[/quote]

COSWAS stands for the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters. It is the pressure group formed in 1999 to stop then mayor CSB from lifting the licenses of prostitutes licensed through Taipei City. Its sole function is to promote licensed sex work. It is not a women’s right group. They have a Chinese-language website that you can find here coswas.org

Some members of COSWAS also teach at Taiwan universities. As individuals, this group does not have a history of involvement in women’s rights. The movement to decriminalize prostitution grew out of opposition to CSB and butuhwa 本土化. Its leadership is composed of 外 省人 cultural elites. Among groups formed to advocate for women, there is no disagreement either officially or individually among their leadership on the issue of licensing sex workers - regardless of party affiliation. It is these groups that I support.

You can read more about this in the edited book volume I am writing. It’s scheduled to be released in February 2010.

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Scott, I can’t help but feel that your positions tend to create, or transmit, spin on this issue. For example you use pejorative terms to characterize COSWAS as “a pressure group” with a “sole purpose”. I can well imagine that a group of prostitutes would indeed form a group with the sole purpose of improving their working conditions, what exactly is the problem with this? Would they get your blessing if they had a second purpose like preserving Christian marriage? Are none of the groups you claim to be “unified in opposition” in fact tainted by other secondary purposes and (hidden) agendas?

Anyway, I’m not up on feminist theory, but surely one or more schools of feminism must state that a woman has the right to choose to sell her body. At the very least, what’s wrong with giving womens’, or better yet actual prostitutes’, voices more weight in this debate, instead a phalanx of busybodies who claim some monopoly on knowing what’s best for these women or for society.

It really seems ridiculous to try to throw out the received experience of the dozens of other nations that have decriminalized prostitution. Surely there is something to be learned from them. I get the impression that this is a trenched battle that has raged for decades, and that at least one side has spent that time coming up with a bunch of clever spin. Well, they have lost now it seems, and in the coming year we’ll see the results start to come in, though I wonder if objective statistics can be proposed, permitted, collected, and accepted in this atmosphere.

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Fair enough. All I ever said was that women’s rights groups in Taiwan do not support decriminalization of sex work and that I support their efforts. COSWAS was not started by prostitutes. It was started by the group of cultural elites that I referred in my post. It was and is not a ‘women’s rights group’. I think the solidarity on this point among Taiwan women’s rights advocates might surprise you.

That’s all I’m saying.

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Appreciate that. Two interesting questions remain. 1. I wonder how these women’s rights groups in Taiwan feel about the laws and the de jure and de facto situation of prostitution in mainland China. 2. It would be interesting to understand how exactly these unified women’s rights groups appear to have lost their fight after two decades of having things their way. (Or possibly they wanted legal changes other than decriminalization.) And I wonder what conclusions we can draw about Ma and the KMT based on their taking this decision.

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Good questions. Actually, I didn’t write the chapter about the women’s movement. It was written by a Taiwanese researcher at NTNU. Her chapter doesn’t address your first question about China, although that’s a really good point. I think the answer to the second question would be that the law prior to now did not reflect their position on prostitution, but that decriminalization would not have solved the problems they have with existing law. The reason the suggestion of decriminalization exists at all is clearly because Ma Ying-Jeou became president.

Ma’s position on prostitution has been consistent ever since he entered electoral politics. Back in the 1999, Taipei mayoral election, his position was to support the demands of COSWAS and its members. How much of this was just that CSB made it an issue which he could oppose, I can not say. What you’ll see when my book is released is that groups, like COSWAS, were lead by individuals not primarily involved in the women’s rights movement who became attached to the issue because they opposed CSB and the DPP - and only for that reason.

I suppose there are members of the KMT who oppose legal prostitution but support Ma and the KMT for other reasons. On the other hand, I have spoken to very strong supporters of CSB who oppose his policies on prostitution. I guess this is just not a major electoral issue.

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A relevant article from today’s Taipei Times discusses some of the problems with what the KMT want to do with prostitution and why legitimate women’s group oppose it.

taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003458315

[quote]Activists pan MOI plan to legalize the sex industry

OLDEST PROFESSION: Lee Li-fen said some countries have realized a legal sex industry does not solve all of the problems and were considering doing a U-turn
By Loa Iok-sin
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Nov 13, 2009, Page 2
Several women’s groups criticized the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) yesterday over its plan to decriminalize the sex industry, saying that doing so would only make the country a global leader in selling the female body.

Deputy Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) reiterated last week that decriminalizing the sex industry was the ministry’s long-term policy objective, following the release of a constitutional interpretation that said a clause in the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) that imposes penalties on sex workers, but not their clients, was unconstitutional.

The Council of Grand Justices explained that the clause was considered unconstitutional because it violates the spirit of equality as stated in the Constitution.

Although the women’s groups welcomed the interpretation itself, most of them disagreed with the ministry’s plan, saying it “overinterpreted the interpretation.”

“Chien thinks decriminalizing the sex industry is a [global] trend, but it still remains questionable whether such a measure would effectively manage the sex industry, make it a ‘clean’ industry and economically protect disadvantaged women in the industry,” Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation executive director Kang Shu-hua (康淑華) told a press conference at the legislature yesterday.

Kang said legalizing the sex industry wouldn’t resolve all the issues associated with it, such as human trafficking and organized crime.

She said these issues did not improve when the area around Huaxi Street (華西街) in Taipei was made a red light district in 1956. Rather, the red light district simply led to more illegal prostitutes — many human trafficking victims.

While people who support the legalization of the sex industry cite examples of other countries where prostitution is legal to support their case, International Campaign to End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism-Taiwan secretary-general Lee Li-fen (李麗芬) said some of those countries have realized a legal sex industry did not solve all of the issues and were considering doing a U-turn.

“Three years after Germany inaugurated the Act Regulating the Legal Situation of Prostitutes, it has been found to be ineffective and there has been little improvement of prostitutes’ working conditions because there was lack of social consensus on the law,” Lee said. “Sex workers are too afraid to expose their true identity and therefore only a handful of sex workers have signed employment contracts with brothels or become registered, self-employed prostitutes.”

Garden of Hope Foundation executive director Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容), on the other hand, said instead of legalizing the sex industry, the government should come up with a solution to resolve the social and economic problems that result in women working as prostitutes.

“Women in the sex industry are exploited — most of the money goes into the pockets of human traffickers, madams, pimps and brothel owners,” Chi said. [/quote]

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Interesting reading. I have mixed views on this.

[quote]The clientele can also ask for health certification to know that their prostitute is clean in NZ.[/quote] Wouldn’t it be nice if sex trade workers could ask the clientele for a health certificate.

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Gives the politicians more ‘leg room’ … now it’s easier for them to visit the ladies for a ‘massage’ … nice move …

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[quote=“kage”]Interesting reading. I have mixed views on this.

How to verify it’s legit? There would sprout up a huge opportunity in providing fake ‘health certificates’ …

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This is part of the problem that’s being expressed here. Women’s groups do not support these plans in a way that is unrelated to the Green/Blue split. Nor is it possible to ‘just do what they did in XXXX country’.

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We’ll let women’s groups run the country and we’ll all wear aprons and clean toilets all day.

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That’s a well-thought out remark. Thank you for the contribution.

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That’s a well-thought out remark. Thank you for the contribution.

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Opinion piece from COSWAS in Sunday’s Taipei Times: An equitable future for sex workers, by Chung Chun-chu and Chang Jung-che 鍾君竺，張榮哲

[quote=“Chung Chun-chu and Chang Jung-che”]…The government should give such sex workers a chance to survive in a self-employed, self-managed capacity. At the same time, the authorities should actively propose better welfare and employment policies for grassroots sex workers so that those lacking resources have a wider variety of options.

Finally, as legal amendments are discussed over the two-year transitional period, we ask that city mayors and county commissioners implement the National Police Agency’s directive that police officers not receive merits for arresting sex workers. Local officials should not follow the example of Kaohsiung, Taipei and Taichung, which, when hosting the World Games, Deaflympics and National Games, harassed street vendors and sex workers because they wanted to give their cities a facelift…[/quote]

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Man, this is good for the economy but bad for my wallet.