KMT legislator Tina Pan (
Pan, who also chairs the Modern Women Foundation (
Pan said while most women tend to tolerate violence inflicted on them by their husbands simply because they cannot bear to split apart their family, the situation of Chinese women is compounded because their residency rights depend on their husbands.
At present, Chinese spouses of Taiwan nationals can apply for residency only after they have been married for two years. Those with children are not required to wait until after two years.
However, the time it takes from filing initial applications until they actually obtain residency rights can be several years, because Taiwan's government has set a yearly quota on the number of Chinese spouses to be granted such rights, resulting in long waiting lists.
The current quota is 3,600 people per year. In addition to the 20,000 applications pending, there is a pool of potential applicants awaiting to become "qualified to apply," according to statistics from the Bureau of Immigration.
Chinese spouses are qualified to apply for citizenship only after two years of residence in Taiwan.
Lai Fang-yu (
"Faced with this problem, many Chinese women have had no choice but to tolerate domestic violence," Lai said.
Pan said several severely abused women opted to run away from their families because they do not know where to get help.
Tsai Jeng-daw (
Tsai said local help centers offer assistance for Chinese and foreign victims, which include helping them apply to courts for restraining orders and file reports with police.
Legal counseling for divorce lawsuits, subsidy of lawsuit expenses, and accompanying them to attend court hearings are some of the services offered by the centers, Tsai said.
The centers also help victims seek temporary shelter and offer them livelihood subsidies of NT$13,400 per month, for up to three months.
Other assistance includes teaching them protection measures and ways to collect evidence, helping arrange schooling for their children and helping them seek medical treatment.
Li Tian-yih (李添益), a section chief at the Mainland Affairs Council's Department of Legal Affairs, said the council has finished its editing work on a booklet to be handed out to Chinese spouses.
The booklet, which will be published in two months, will be a comprehensive source of information for them, Li said.
Helplines: The Domestic violence prevention committee: 080-000-600. The Modern Women Foundation: (02)2358-3030
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