Read the whole story at Yahoo News Asia…

Taiwan’s women split over prostitution issue

Sex workers in Taiwan have cautiously welcomed a government plan to legalise prostitution, but the scheme is being opposed by an alliance of women’s groups who fear it will breed crime and violence.

A red-light area similar to Amsterdam’s famed canalside sex-for-sale district has been proposed for the capital Taipei, with legal and zoning measures due in place within six months.

Prostitutes and their supporters say they see a ray of hope after many years of campaigning for legalisation to protect them from both customers and police, but some are concerned about being moved into special zones.

“I hope the government will allow us to stay where we are and give us legal protection,” said one prostitute who wanted to be identified as Hsiao-feng. “I don’t want to move to a new place to start again.”

Hsiao-feng earns a living in Taipei’s Wanhua district, which is believed to be home to thousands of sex workers plying their trade illegally even though prostitution was outlawed in the city in 1997.

“Who wants to have red-light districts near homes?” she asks. “The government would have to put us in the mountains but then we can’t make a living because nobody wants to travel that far.”

Observers say paid-for sex remains big business and the ban has driven it underground, where brothels operate under euphemistic names such as tea houses, massage parlours, clubs and even skin-care salons.

There are also women known as “liu ying” or “floating orioles” — a metaphor for flirtatious and seductive women — who find patrons on the streets.

Read the details at The Malaysian Insider…

Taipei gives greenlight to redlight workers

Taiwan began a process of legalising prostitution today making the island the latest place in the world to decriminalise the world’s oldest profession.

In six months, authorities will stop punishing Taiwan sex workers after prostitutes successfully campaigned to be given the same protection as their clients, a government spokesman said.

“Now the client gets off free, but the prostitute gets punished, and that’s not fair,” spokesman Su Jun-pin said.

Taiwan’s cabinet will issue regulations within six months, when new regulations take effect, covering locations in Taiwan approved for prostitution.

“It’s like fishing,” Su said. “The activity may be legal, but in some places you can’t do it.”

Taiwan outlawed prostitution 11 years ago, but older sections of the capital Taipei still teem with underground sex workers in bars and night clubs on the upper floors of high-rise buildings.

Read the whole story at Reuters…

Taiwan floats plan for legalized prostitution zone

Taiwan’s interior ministry has proposed setting up a legal prostitution zone allowing the island’s already huge underground trade to flourish, in response to popular demand from sex workers, officials said on Friday. Skip related content

Pimps, prostitutes and their clients who do business in the zone will not face any punishment, said ministry department head Huang Bi-hsia.

“Prostitution remains a common phenomenon around the world, and there’s no way to stamp it out,” a ministry research report says. “Handling the question of adult sex in the future can shift toward a special zone plan.”

Taiwan outlawed prostitution 11 years ago, but older sections of the capital Taipei still teem with underground sex workers in tiny bars and night clubs on the upper floors of high-rise buildings.

Read the whole story at Yahoo News…

Taiwan lawmakers bid to decriminalise prostitution

Ruling party lawmakers in Taiwan vowed to press ahead with attempts to decriminalise prostitution after winning enough backing Sunday to introduce a bill to parliament.

Their proposal aims to amend the existing law under which prostitutes are punished but their clients are not.

Prostitutes face detention of three days or a fine of up to 30,000 Taiwan dollars (888 US) if they are caught providing sex services.

“Since prostitution is illegal, sex workers were often abused, and what’s more, when this happened, they dared not turn to police for help,” said Cheng Li-wen, the legislator behind the proposal.

The proposal has been endorsed by more than 10 legislators from the ruling party, meaning it has passed the threshold for becoming a bill and would be discussed on the parliamentary floor, the United Daily News said.

Opponents claimed that legalising the domestic sex industry would result in increased sex abuse in the country.

However, Wang Fang-ping, a leading advocate for the rights of sex workers, hailed what she called “a small step forward” in decriminalising prostitution.

While there is no official estimate of the scale of Taiwan’s sex industry, Wang said up to 800,000 people may be involved, with estimated annual revenue of at least 60 billion Taiwan dollars.

There are about 30 prostitutes licensed by the government nationwide under laws enacted in 1957. Governments have stopped issuing new licences, allowing existing permits to be phased out.

But Wang said phasing out licences had forced prostitutes underground. “In many cases, we could see that police and corrupt officials used the loopholes to take hefty bribes from the huge underground business,” she said.

A trial offers us an interesting look into the business in Honk Kong.  The Earth Times reports….

Prostitute recruitment, bribery at heart of Hong Kong trial

An alleged fixer for Chinese prostitutes was on trial in Hong Kong Tuesday, accused of claiming to be able to bribe consulate officials to speed up visas for women to work in Australia. Yeung Sum-ching, 40, was accused of telling an undercover policewoman that she was able to pay bribes to staff in the Australian consulate in Hong Kong to allow the officer to work in the sex trade in Melbourne.

She was arrested in a police sting after advertisements were placed in Chinese newspapers in Hong Kong in December 2006 recruiting women “to make quick money in Australia.”

At the opening of Yeung’s trial Monday, a court heard how she allegedly told the undercover officer that she could earn 480 to 800 Hong Kong dollars (62 to 103 US dollars) an hour working as a prostitute.

She claimed to arrange daily flights to Australia for women going to work as prostitutes and to recruit both Chinese women and women from other countries, Hong Kong’s District Court was told.

Yeung, arrested at an arranged meeting where the policewoman was due to hand over travel documents, denied a charge of attempting to profit from prostitution.

As part of the same police operation, a 34-year-old man was jailed for three years in November for trying to send two women undercover police officers to work as prostitutes overseas.

He was arrested after advertisements appeared in newspapers reading: “Make quick money overseas by being public relations officers in Japan, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.”

The Hong Kong Police leave no stone unturned!  The Earth Times reports…

Hong Kong police grilled over why they do 18 strip searches a day

Police in Hong Kong were Tuesday facing an inquiry into why they carry out 18 strip searches a day on suspects with some claiming they are repeatedly ordered to undress. Legislators have set up a sub-committee to investigate the practice after hearing that more than one in five suspects detained between July and September were strip-searched.

Many of the suspects strip-searched are women from mainland China and other South-East Asian countries detained for prostitution and related offences in the wealthy city of 6.9 million.

A hearing of the legislative council’s security panel Monday heard that of 8,086 people detained by police between July and September, 1,674 were fully strip-searched, having to remove all their clothes.

Human rights campaigners claim that as well as women arrested for prostitution, strip searches were being used to intimidate people involved in peaceful anti-government protests.

Activists protesting over the demolition of a historic pier and the redevelopment of a celebrated street in the city were subjected to strip searches after being arrested, they pointed out.

Police in Hong Kong last year came under fire for paying for sex services from prostitutes in undercover operations to close down brothels, a practice still widely used by officers.

The end of an era?   Stuff.com in New Zealand reports…

Taiwan’s last legal brothel closed as elderly pimp dies

Authorities in central Taiwan have turned off the red light at the county’s last legal brothel after the death of its pimp aged 87, newspapers said.

Ai-Le was the last legal brothel in Nantou county in central Taiwan, and police revoked its permit because the 48-year-old business could not be transferred, the Liberty Times reported.

Prostitution has been illegal in Taiwan since 1997, and licensing of new brothels stopped in 1974, but isolated illegal brothels can be found all over the island. Brothels licensed prior to 1974 were allowed to keep operating.

The closure effectively leaves Ai-Le’s two prostitutes, aged 40 and 50, jobless, the paper added.

A photo in the newspaper shows Ai-Le as a building with a pink flower-print facade, rimmed by a tattered roof.

“Actually, with this sort of thing, there’s no real loss,” township government Secretary-General Liang Wen-teh told Reuters. “The brothels may have legal permits, but that doesn’t mean all the people inside are legal.”

Bringing coded language to a whole new level, you really have to credit the imaginations of these entrepreneurial folks. The Earth Times reports…

Weird wine labels leads police to crack down prostitution ring

Weird wine labels and exorbitant prices promoted by a liquor company have led Taiwan police to crack down on a prostitution ring, the online newspaper NOWnews.com reported Sunday. While the normal price for a bottle of beer is about 30 Taiwan dollars (1 US dollar) and 500 dollars (16 US dollars) for a bottle of liquor, the liquor company charged 3,500 Taiwan dollars (100 US dollars) for a bottle of local beer, 5,000 Taiwan dollars (160 US dollars) for a bottle of Japanese wine, and 6,000 Taiwan dollars 200 US dollars) for a bottle of Russian vodka.

The rules for drinking were even more strange: the drink had to be imbibed only once, and within 50 minutes; a 10 per cent surcharge had to be paid for extra service; a drink could be replaced if the customer was unhappy with it; and there was also an extra charge if the drink was taken “wearing a raincoat and spits into the mouth.”

But an investigation revealed that the liquor company was actually a prostitution ring which lured customers through an internet chatroom, NOWnews said, and the labels referred to the nationality of the prostitute. “Wearing a raincoat and spits into the mouth” was the code for oral sex, and “18 proof bear” and “30 proof beer” referred to the age of the call girls.

The online paper did not provide other details about the prostitution ring, but if convicted, those behind it could face a maximum five-year imprisonment on charges of offences against morals.