As the government’s “new southbound policy” gains more publicity and attention abroad, there is a growing need for Taiwanese to be further educated about Southeast Asian nations and their people.
In particular, migrant workers in Taiwan should feel safe and be treated with respect. This resonates with the government’s policy, if it truly is a “human-centered” one that values human connections and exchanges.
Recent news about the alleged rape of an Indonesian caregiver by a Taiwanese employer flies in the face of the new policy.
Police said that, according to the caregiver, after being repeatedly raped by her employer, she filmed one of the alleged assaults on July 30 and sent the video to her employment broker and a friend.
The broker alleged that when the caregiver told it she had been harassed last month, she did not say that she had been raped, and she did not want to call the police.
The agency’s remarks do not change the fact that a significant amount of time had passed between the first alleged assault and intervention by authorities.
This raises two questions: Why did the caregiver not report the assault the first time it happened? And why did she feel that she would not get the support she needed if the authorities were informed?
She might not have wanted to expose it for fear of losing her job or work visa — a tactic used by some employers and brokers.
This raises a further question: Has the government done enough to equip migrant workers with the information they need to protect themselves?
The slapping of another Indonesian caregiver, which made the news in October last year and also sparked outrage in Indonesia, was also not immediately reported to authorities. In that case, a video the victim recorded had to travel all the way to Hong Kong before it was finally reported on in Taiwan.
Not only do migrant workers need to be well-
advised about their rights and sources of support, Taiwanese — including brokers, employers and the general public — need to learn more about treating people from different cultures with equal respect.
Some brokers — during a counterprotest to an amendment migrant workers’ support groups had asked for that would scrap the regulation requiring migrant workers to leave the nation for at least one day every three years — blamed the support groups for “teaching them how to take advantage of the rules.” This remark revealed a feeling of superiority and lack of workers’ rights awareness. However, it is ignorance that is not limited to brokers, but also extends to many Taiwanese, where discrimination against migrant workers and new immigrants is often glossed over and thereby implicitly sanctioned.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Li-chan (林麗嬋) was correct when she said that the effect of the new southbound policy, with a budget of NT$4.2 billion (US$132.5 million), would be seriously compromised by any negative news concerning migrant workers from Southeast Asian countries getting abused or treated badly in Taiwan.
She was also right in pointing out that migrant workers and new immigrants are “the closest personal exchange between Taiwan and ASEAN.”
If the exchange and education of people is the emphasis of the “new” southbound policy to promote greater cultural familiarity and amity between the two regions, as Premier Lin Chuan (林全) said, then migrant workers should not be excluded from this “human-centered” policy.
The People First Party missed the target when it criticized the policy’s budget plan yesterday, saying that vis a vis education and culture, it placed too little emphasis on financial support for enterprises to invest and develop in ASEAN countries. “Cross-
nation cooperation” and “human-based exchanges” are exactly why the southbound policy is “new.”
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