TAIPEI: Taiwan police have busted a human smuggling ring and rescued 35 Filipinas who were forced into the adult trade, prosecutors said here the other day.
The women were rescued after investigators raided two pubs in southern Taiwan and arrested the suspected ring leader, a man identified only by his family name Hung, the Tainan district prosecutors’ office said.
Hung was accused of recruiting the women under the pretext that they would be working as professional dancers. Instead, he took away their passports after they arrived in Taiwan and forced them to work as sex slaves, it said.
Hung was later released on a bail of Tw$1 million ($33,300) while the women will be sent to a local shelter, prosecutors said.
Prostitution is illegal in Taiwan but the parliament in 2011 passed a controversial bill to allow special zones.
While there is no official figure for the scale of Taiwan’s sex industry, observers estimate it involves hundreds of thousands of people and generates billions of Taiwanese dollars a year.
