Women seek help for Nigerian husbands

Two women married to Nigerians hold their children at a press conference held by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Chao-rung yesterday to highlight the women's plight. The women asked the legislature to help to secure dependent visas for their husbands so they could return to Taiwan to live with their families. PHOTO: CHIEN JUNG-FONG, TAIPEI TIMES

Three Taiwanese women appealed to the legislature yesterday to help their Nigerian husbands get their dependent visas approved.

Chou Pei-i (周佩誼), who has been separated from her husband for 18 months, told a press conference hosted by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Chao-rung (陳朝容) that the Ministry of the Interior had agreed to rescind a visa ban on her husband, but Taiwan's representative office in Nigeria had refused her husband's application for a dependent visa.

"The office, citing the defense of Taiwan's dignity, told my husband that it can't approve his visa application," Chou said.

Afam Ifeanyi Nwankwo, Chou's husband, was refused re-entry after he was arrested for overstaying his previous visa by three years and two months.

"My husband did make a mistake by overstaying his visa, but the one-and-a-half year separation is already a punishment," she said.

"I beg the government to give our family a chance for a reunion," Chou said.

Chen said Nigerians have had trouble getting visas after several Nigerians were found to have obtained visas through fake marriages.

"It's unreasonable that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has intentionally put off reviewing Nigerians' visa applications because of these frauds," he said.

He urged the ministry to quickly grant visas to Nigerians after vetting the authenticity of their marriages to Taiwanese.

Chang Ya-chuan (張雅娟) also called on the government to tell her how long she would have to wait to see her husband after he got into trouble for overstaying his visa.

"My husband did do something wrong, but how long will the punishment last?" Chang said, holding her 24-month-old daughter in her arms. "Every time I ask [my daughter] who her father is, she gives me different answers, and none of them are correct. It breaks my heart."

An official with the ministry's Bureau of Consular Affairs, who asked not to be identified, said the visa applications submitted by Chou and Chang's husbands were denied because they had relied on fabricated documents.

"Let's first leave aside the question of the authenticity of their marriages," he told the Taipei Times by telephone.

"There is a pattern in at least nine cases [where fabricated documents were used] so that we have to be cautious in reviewing their visa applications," he said.

According to the official, nine Nigerian men had overstayed their visas by more than two years before they were forced to leave the country.

They then married Taiwanese women and applied for dependent visas using fabricated documents, he said.

People who overstay their visas are barred from re-entry for set periods of time -- unless they have bee married to a Taiwanese for one year or their Taiwanese wives are more than five months pregnant.

"We didn't refuse to review their applications, but they should at least get the Ministry of the Interior to lift the bans on their re-entry and then explain the fabricated documents to our officials posted in Nigeria," the official said.