Betel Nuts in Taiwan
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:39 PM

There's a world health promotion conference currently underway in Vancouver. According to this article in the Vancouver Sun, one of the topics that is being addressed is the consumption of betel nuts, especially in Taiwan. Betel nut chewing, which has a stimulative effect, is a popular activity throughout much of Asia; in Forces of Habit, David Courtwright suggests (page 54) that "Something like a tenth of the world's population now indulges in the practice." But Taiwan has developed its own method of distributing betel: roadside booths staffed by underdressed betel nut beauties. And the health effects of betel nut consumption can be severe, as the Vancouver Sun article notes:

The nuts [in Taiwan] are sold at roadside kiosks by scantily clad women and chewing them is a major reason why oral cancers are the third most common cancer (after lung and liver) in that country. In Canada, by comparison, oral cancer ranks ninth in men and 15th in women.

This shocking method of delivering betel nuts -- employing attractive women in revealing clothes inside roadside booths -- would never be used to peddle a psychoactive substance in the good ol' USA.

Labels: Asia, betel nuts, Canada, coffee, Taiwan

 
"Women's Groups Divided Over Prostitution"
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:29 PM

So reads the headline for this article in the Taipei Times, though its applicability is more general. Taiwan is rethinking its criminalization of prostitution. The groups mentioned share an interest in decriminalizing the activities of prostitutes -- where they differ is on the legal status of customers of prostitutes:

"Since 1997, when then Taipei mayor Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) launched a crackdown on the city's brothels, women's groups have repeatedly expressed concern over the rights of sex workers and their position in society.

These groups are divided into two camps that each hold a different opinion on the sex industry. One side, led by The Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (日日春關懷互助協會), is calling for the complete legalization of the sex industry, with no punishment for either prostitutes or their clients.

The other side, led by The Garden of Hope Foundation and the End Child Prostitution Association in Taiwan (終止童妓協會), propose that the clients, rather than the sex workers, be penalized."

How do men feel about this issue? Well, it seems to depend on whether they themselves are consumers of the services of prostitutes. According to an academic who has studied Taiwanese prostitution (as quoted in the Taipei Times article), 'Men who like to pay for sex tend to think it is better to legalize the sex industry.'

Labels: Asia, Prohibition, prostitution, Taiwan

 
One-Sided Enforcement of Prostitution
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:48 PM

In the last few months, Vice Squad has noted movements to liberalize anti-prostitution laws in Thailand, Las Vegas, New Zealand, the Czech Republic (sort of), and Great Britain. Vice Squad friend Pak Shun Ng brings our attention to this article in the Straits Times Interactive (Singapore), regarding a similar dynamic in Taiwan, where the decriminalization of prostitution is under consideration.

Currently in Taiwan prostitution is illegal, though it is not a crime to be a customer of a prostitute. An official with the interior ministry's women's welfare unit is quoted in the linked article: 'There is no justification as to why prostitutes are subject to legal punishment whereas patrons are excluded from it.'

Though I won't argue that such one-sided enforcement of anti-prostitution laws is optimal public policy, I think that one can come up with some potential rationales for this double-standard (beyond the patriarchy). First, for vice crimes in general, sellers tend to be subject to more severe punishments than buyers: drug laws in the US provide a case in point. And this might make sense, on the grounds that an individual seller plays a much larger role in a vice market than does an individual buyer, because there are many more buyers than sellers. But second, one-sided enforcement might be a way to make it harder to conduct vice transactions. When both parties are subject to criminal sanctions, the potential punishments set up a sort of mutual exchange of hostages. A buyer is unlikely to go to the police if the buyer will be punished, too. So, it may be easier for sellers to trust buyers when buying is also illegal, than it is when buying is unpunished. If the goal is to minimize vice exchanges, one-sided enforcement might be the way to go. (This argument is spelled out in J. Lott and R. D. Roberts, "Why Comply?: One-Sided Enforcement of Price Controls and Victimless Crime Laws," Journal of Legal Studies 18: 403-414, June 1989; on hostage exchange, see the wonderful "Contract Law and the State of Nature," by Anthony Kronman, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 1 (1): 5-32, 1985.) At any rate, one-sided enforcement of prostitution laws no doubt has been promoted by the fact that it has traditionally been the men who were making the laws. State prostitution controls in the US generally did not criminalize the behavior of buyers until the last 50 years or so, and in some states the penalties are less severe than they are for sellers.

Labels: Asia, prostitution, Taiwan