To whom it may concern,

We urgently need your support.
Please sign this petition.

Jia-Zhen and Fang-Ping

To fill out this petition copy and paste this form into an e-mail. (Drag your cursor over the text to select it) Please fill out this petition IN BLOCK LETTERS. E-mail it to: hsinchi@ms10.hinet.net Subject: TULIPS Petition. Please also send it to all relevant allies and networks.

Example:

[X] I endorse TULIPS Petition.

 1. Family Name: SORFLEET
    First Name: ANDREW
    Organization: SEX WORKERS ALLIANCE OF VANCOUVER (SWAV)
    Affilation/position: COORDINATOR
 
 2. Mailing Adress: 3075-349 GEORGIA ST. W.
    Postal Code: V6B 3X6
    Town & Country: VANCOUVER, BC  CANADA
    Telephone: 01 (604) 488-0710
    Fax: SAME, CALL FIRST
    E-Mail: handyman@walnet.org

We, the undersigned, urge the Taipei City Mayor to:

1. Recognize the edict of the Taipei City Council to 
   allow former legal prostitutes a two-year grace 
   period. After that, the former prostitutes will 
   gladly give up their licenses forever.

2. Take seriously the impossibility of eliminating 
   sex work immediately, and the problem of 
   "underground-ation" -- and take steps to provide 
   more protection from exploitation, danger or 
   victimization of sex workers themselves. Reconsider 
   the question of whether immediate criminalization of 
   sex workers can really help the exploited or not.=


[_] I endorse TULIPS Petition.

 1. Family Name:
    First Name:
    Organization:
    Affilation/position:
 
 2. Mailing Adress:
    Postal Code:
    Town & Country:
    Telephone:
    Fax:
    E-Mail: 

Background

128 Legal Sex Workers in Taipei
Declared Illegal by the Government

The Taipei City Government had been planning to phase out legal prostitution by not giving out new licenses and within the next two decades, legal prostitution would have died out in Taipei city. Yet, in order to show its determination in the recent governmental anti-obscenity campaign (sao huang), the mayor has willfully decided to implement the inhumane measure of declaring illegal the work of 128 women, most of whom are semi-literate single mothers in their mid-forties, many of whom are supporting extended families. The city government has promised temporary subsidies for these prostitutes, but the latter say they do not want charity funds from the government. We can work for a living, let us do that, they say.

Furthermore, governmental subsidy funds come with strings and stringent conditions which not all the women can meet. It also demands that these women stay away from hotels, bars and all such places for the duration of a year of subsidy funding to avoid all suspicions of continued sex work: these 128 women have in effect been placed on parole awaiting the allocation of subsidy funding.

Since September 6, these women have formed a group to demand a reasonable two-year grace period before the new law making their jobs illegal takes effect. Several local labor groups and women's groups have rallied to their support, pointing to how this mode of declaring prostitutes illegal is similar to the recent spate of sudden closing of factories in Taiwan without providing for woman workers' security.

We urge you to sign your name in support of these 128 prostitutes who are still in the process of protesting their sudden illegal work status and the resulting police harassment and surveillance. We urge you to support their demand for a two-year grace period, which will be discussed at the opening of the next city council meeting in October. Your signature will certainly add to the pressure. Please forward this message on to all concerned. Please post this message on all relevant networks.

• Solidarity Front of Women Workers
  
• Pink Collar Solidarity
  
• The Awakening Foundation
  
• Center for the Study of Sexuality and Difference, National Central University
  
• Research Center of Gender and Space, National Taiwan University
  
• Research Center for the Study of Gender and Society, National Tsinhua University