Recalling how over a decade ago she traveled island wide to rescue girls from forced prostitution, Ms. Shen Mei-Chen, a lawyer and co-founder of Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation (TWRF), still feels outraged. Between 1986 and 1987, there was substantial media coverage on the horrific experiences of Taiwanese girls sold and forced into prostitution. The general public responded with great sympathy, and domestic sex trafficking became a prominent issue in the society.  On January 10, 1987, more than thirty social activist organizations held a large-scale demonstration on Huaxi Street to denounce the evils of human trafficking as well as to condemn underage prostitution. Following the event, Ms. Shen and other activists found it was necessary to establish a formal organization devoted to the rescue and care of women trafficked into prostitution. They wanted to ensure the continued attention on this important issue even after its media coverage diminished. 

 

In August, 1987, TWRF was established with the mission of rescuing underage prostitutes and victims of sex trafficking, and providing them with legal assistance and direct services. After the 1987 Huaxi demonstration, the government launched the “ Government Ethic Project” to crack down on illegal brothels and search for underage prostitutes. The campaign identified over eight hundred underage prostitutes but the government action soon came to a hasty halt.  On January 9, 1988, one year after the Huaxi Street demonstration, TWRF summoned over fifty social activist organizations to launch a second Huaxi Street demonstration.  In addition to criticizing the government’s insufficient efforts on law enforcement, the coalition called for the amendment of the Youth Welfare Law and a more aggressive approach to end underage prostitution in Taiwan.

 

Since then, TWRF exerted full power to directly rescue underage prostitutes, provide protection through judicial procedures, and offer follow-up shelter stay and counseling services, including legal, medical, schooling, and employment assistance, aiming to give the victims an opportunity to pursue happiness and return to the society to live a normal life.

 

Apart from devoting ourselves to the direct rescue, we also sought to prevent women from being forced into prostitution through social education. From the “Safe Rescue” project, which uncovered the fact that legal brothels hid illegal underage prostitutes; assisting six adults and one child in Northern Thailand to strive for freedom and go back to their hometown; to supporting prosecutors in their crackdown on trafficking rings and saving Taiwanese girls who were sold to Japan into prostitution, TWRF never forgets its mission of ending the sex trade. TWRF also set up the Lily Midway Home to provide shelter for girls immediately after they were freed from forced prostitution, while organizing series of activities on “Anti-Pornography Pollution Year,” “Anti-Pornography for Underage Prostitutes,” “Make Taipei a City of Love Instead of Sex,” and “Yellow Ribbon Movement.” We later launched the “Lily Project” to educate aboriginal girls to cherish and respect their bodies, to discover trafficking in persons, and to refuse being sold. We promoted the concepts that underage prostitution is a criminal act, and that trafficking in persons as well as coercing women into prostitution are criminal behavior and inhuman deeds.