Taiwan’s cabinet took a big step toward a regulated prostitution industry by passing a bill Thursday to allow sex to be sold openly in designated red-light districts. The move is hailed as a rational way to protect both sex workers and their clients.
The approved bill allows regional governments to set up and regulate special sex trade zones while instituting fines of up to Tw$30,000 ($1,110) for prostitutes, pimps and clients who engage in paid sexual services elsewhere. The bill will have to be approved by parliament to become law.
The majority of Taiwanese favor conditionally legalizing the sex industry so it can be better regulated for health, safety and protection of young men and women from criminal exploitation, according to the Interior Ministry which drafted the bill. An earlier plan to allow small-scale brothels without zoning was dropped on the ground that monitoring them would be difficult.
The bill was introduced after the constitutional court struck down a much-criticized regulation that punished only prostitutes while letting clients go free.
No official figures exist for the scale of Taiwan’s sex industry, but it is conservatively estimated to involve hundreds of thousands of workers and generate billions of Taiwanese dollars a year.
