Daily Lessons from Life 03 August 2010 - Protest in China for legal brothels

"Protest in China for legal brothels - Tue, Aug 03, 2010 Reuters

BEIJING - An activist Chinese sex worker said she had been detained after fronting an unusual protest to demand legalised prostitution, rampant in China despite an official ban since the Communists took power six decades ago.


Ye Haiyan, who also goes by the name of 'Hooligan Sparrow', rallied a small group of sex workers and their supporters in the central Chinese city of Wuhan last Thursday.

The group, holding red umbrellas, carried banners and collected signatures urging an end to discrimination against sex workers.

Ye, a single mother, who described herself as a sex worker started a website for sex workers five years ago! She also goes around town to distribute condoms and promote aids awareness and the right of sex workers. She was livid with the so-called 'Shame Parade' when prostitutes were paraded public in handcuff around town! Actually this practice provoked a backslash recently in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, where the Central Government has to tell the Public Security folks to cut this nonsense out!!"

Lessons for me are:

1. Ms Ye is ahead of her time for sure. Prostitution is for real and it is rampant. Many have their stories to tell on why they become one. As long as they are adults and NOT forced into it, they deserve to have 'right to protection'. Yes?;

2. if the prostitutes do it to finance a lifestyle they so chosen. It is nobody business really unless she (or even he) is a minor! It is her or his body and she or he can choose how to use it. Yes?;

3. However, if they are forced into in, kidnapped and forced into it, the people who forced them into such work MUST be made to pay for it. The laws need to put them away and NOT the prostitutes! In China, when economic changes sweep along like tsunami wave, many people get lost in it. Prostitution can only be a temporary vocation. The use-by date is very short. The women and the men know it. Maybe if society can talk about it, they can help to get people off this work and doing something more meaningful?

For now, it is not a big crime to be a prostitute in my book. It is better than the many corrupt officials and business people who create much bigger negative impact with their corrupt way! e.g. tainted milk power cases!, slave labor in the mines!, dumping toxic waste into water way, etc...