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Thu Oct 14, 2:01 pm ET
TAIPEI (Reuters) Taiwan's government plans to allow sex workers to set up
small businesses in the latest change to laws that had once forced the huge
industry underground, the interior ministry said.
In a statement on its website, the ministry said it would consider brothels of
three to five staff away from areas frequented by children. It will put plans
to a cabinet committee by the end of the year.
The ministry ruled out earlier proposals to set up red-light districts or allow
larger businesses due to concerns among members of its committee set up to
study the issue that such measures would turn the sex trade into a regular
industry.
Prostitution was legal only in Taiwan's capital, Taipei, until 1997 when the
city authorities made it a criminal offence to be a prostitute though not to
patronize one.
The government began debating new laws two years ago after pressure from
prostitute groups over the unfairness of the law. In 2009 it stopped punishing
sex workers.
Bars and night clubs in older parts of Taipei still teem with sex workers.
Estimates from activists put the number of people involved in sex-related jobs
in Taiwan at 600,000.
(Reporting by Jonathan Standing and Ralph Jennings)