Op-Ed Contributors

Debate: Prostitution

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-31 07:50
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Several legal provisions, such as the Law of Protection of Rights and Interests of Women, prohibit prostitution in the country. The law prohibits a person from forcing or seducing women into flesh trade, or sheltering women from whom "clients" curry sexual favors in exchange for money. It spells out the punishment for such acts, too.

The Law of the PRC on Penalties for Administration of Public Security specifies the punishments for prostitutes and those running prostitution rackets. Given all the legal provisions of the socialist system, how can prostitution be legalized?

On the social level, all citizens are engaged in building a harmonious socialist society based on the requirements of the Communist Party of China's (CPC) Central Committee. The CPC Central Committee wants to build a prosperous, democratic, culturally advanced modern socialist state. Prostitution is a social evil that debases the standards of social conduct, undermines social stability and gives rise to corruption and crime, and hurts the healthy development of the next generation. It is totally against the principles of harmonious socialist society.

On the economic front, some people are under the spell of a fallacy that prostitution promotes economic growth. The truth is that the country's economic growth is the result of the hard struggle of its people in which prostitution never had - and will never have - any role to play.

The Chinese government believes in the freedom of a person to choose his/her life partner, monogamy, and equality between men and women. Husband and wife should be loyal to and respect each other. The stability of marriage and family is the cornerstone of social stability. The spread of prostitution may undermine these family and social values. The government emphasizes the sanctity of man-woman relationship and the family, and has enacted the Marriage Law to maintain it. Where in all this is a place for prostitution?

To put in one word, China cannot legalize prostitution because it goes against the very basic principles of socialism.

The author, formerly a practising lawyer with All-China Women's Federation, has written Crime and Punishment: Twenty Years of China Banning Prostitution.

Debate: Prostitution

(China Daily 05/31/2010 page9)

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