Indonesia’s Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers yesterday called on authorities to ensure that a Taiwanese employer who allegedly raped an Indonesian caregiver is brought to justice.
The agency made the statement after a video was published on the Web site of Suarabmi, an Indonesian media outlet.
The Web site, www.suarabmi.com, published an Indonesian-language report on the story yesterday, with images of a messaging app conversation and a YouTube video that was unavailable because of YouTube’s policy on “nudity or sexual content.”
Photo copied by Chang Jui-hsiung, Taipei Times
The Taichung Police Department said that it received a call on the 1955 hotline — a toll-free, round-the-clock service run by the Ministry of Labor for foreign workers — at about 6pm on Friday.
The hotline said it had been contacted by a 31-year-old Indonesian woman who said she had been raped.
Police and Taichung labor officials went to her employer’s home and brought the woman to the police station.
Photo: CNA
Police notified her employment broker and sent for an interpreter to help with questioning.
However, police said they were unable to get a complete statement, as the woman fainted during questioning.
The woman was taken to a shelter and the report was postponed until yesterday, police said.
However, at about 11am yesterday, the woman was found with one of her wrists cut in an apparent suicide attempt and was taken to hospital.
Her condition has since stabilized, police said.
Police said that according to her incomplete account, she filmed her employer — a 58-year-old man, surnamed Hsieh (謝), whose father she had been hired to take care of — during the assault, with the footage dated July 30 and sent the video to her employment broker and a friend.
Police said the employment broker earlier this month suspected she might have been raped and asked her about it, to which she reportedly said she wanted to gather more evidence and call the police.
The woman and the agency agreed that the agency would collect her from her employer on Friday afternoon, but the woman had already called the 1955 hotline, which had contacted the police.
Police were inquiring into Hsieh’s whereabouts to bring him in for questioning.
Agency Deputy Director Agusdin Subiantoro said the Indonesian authority would pursue legal action to protect its overseas citizens and would ask the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office in Taipei to lodge a formal complaint should the employment broker fail to take action against the man.
The agency did not exclude the possibility of revoking the employment broker’s operating license, Subiantoro said.
The Taichung City Government’s Bureau of Labor said that foreign workers should report any inappropriate activity by employers, adding that the bureau’s labor help hotline is always open.
Additional reporting by Ho Tsung-han and CNA
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique