Sex, Human Rights, and Work Comparative Discussion on the Adult Sex Trade Regulations

• Main Authors: wei- long Wang, 王偉龍
• Other Authors: 陳新民
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/48979091004372705093

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 國家發展研究所 === 96 === Abstract The Westerners said, “Prostitute exist before human civilization.” Since long ago, there have been offensive phrases of “like ruffians and whores” or insulting lascivious women as “prostitutes” in our life. Generally speaking, prostitutes have low social status and are deemed unbearable. Facing this long-standing and controversial issue, what attitude should be adopted by the law to control it? Can adults use body to trade for money voluntarily? Under the current legal system of Taiwan, only Article 80 of the Social Order Maintenance Act stipulated penalty on “immoral” or obstruction to “good social customs”, other laws assume that all sex trade, whether voluntary, is a conduct impairing social orders. Although the Criminal Code of Taiwan does not enforce penalty on voluntary sex trade itself, it treated conducts promoting sex trade and dissemination of such information as criminal behaviors. Should this view be further deliberated based on the thoughts of human rights protection in the Constitution? Therefore, this paper aims to review the constitutional controversy of the regulations on adult voluntary sex trade, based on the nature of voluntary sex trade and the perspective of fundamental human rights. It also analyzes the differences in laws and execution of different countries from a comparative view, and proposes the flaws and falsehoods of the current adult sex trade regulations in Taiwan, in order to provide the governmental bureaus a new legislative attitude and direction on the overall industry from the concept of basic human rights. This paper is organized as follows: Chapter 1 is the research motive and purpose. Chapter 2 points out the controversy of prostitution from the viewpoints of religious philosophy, Western feminism, and modern sociology, and discusses whether prostitution is a basic rights to be protected and respected in constitutions from the viewpoint of human rights protection, the purposes of international conventions, and whether the abolishment of prostitution by the Taipei City Government violated the basic human rights of the people. Chapter 3 introduces the legal system of adult sex trade control in Taiwan, including criminal law and administrative law, and points out the problems of adult sex trade control in actual execution and the legal system, as well as the root causes. Chapter 4 compares the legislation of different countries concerning the regulations and related problems of sex trade, especially the prohibition of prostitution in the US and Japan, open policy in Germany and Holland, and policies in Hong Kong and Macau that shared the same Chinese culture as Taiwan, in order to explain and review the legislative attitude of different countries. Chapter 5 expounds the constitutional controversy of the penalty on adult sex trade stipulated in Article 80 of the Social Order Maintenance Act, and its violation of the constitution. Chapter 6 presents the findings and suggestions.