Sisters urge respect for foreign spouses

An activity to promote interracial marriage love and harmony is set to kick off later this month, the Catholic foundation that will sponsor the activity said yesterday.

Taiwan Good Shepherd Sisters Social Welfare Services (善牧基金會) said at a press conference that the activity -- dubbed "Respect, Harmony, Love -- Pray for Blessing the Families formed by Foreign Wives" -- will take place at the Taipei Cultural Center on April 20.

Similar activities will be held in Taichung and Kaohsiung on April 27 and May 10, respectively.

Sister Tang Chin-lien (湯靜蓮), executive director of the foundation, said statistics by the Ministry of Interior show that foreign spouses of Taiwanese who have valid documents to stay in Taiwan amounted to more than 74,000 as of the end of last year, excluding those who have obtained citizenship in Taiwan.

This represents a 22.7-percent increase over the previous year's figure.

Among the foreign brides in this group, those from Vietnam accounted for 62.7 percent of the total.

Tang said that with the number of Taiwan residents marrying people from Southeast Asia increasing, the foundation has also handled an increasing number of foreign spouses soliciting assistance in their family lives.

Sister Tang said that because of culture and language differences, the foundation has encountered complicated legal, cultural and communication problems in trying to provide assistance, adding that it will need strong support from society to carry out its task.

An awareness ad on helping abused foreign spouses in Taiwan was also aired at the press conference, featuring such celebrities as TV actress Chang Hsiao-yen (張曉燕), Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation chairwoman Nita Ing, dancer Lo Man-fei (羅曼菲), and Chang Shu-feng (張淑芬), wife of the chairman of the semiconductor giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation.

A Philippine spouse called A-Chiu was also present at the press conference. She told reporters how her husband had fled Taiwan after running up huge debts, leaving her and their two children to fend for themselves.

Bursting into tears, she recalled how debtors then came to her door, threatening to force her into prostitution and even to sell her children.

Pointing out that she wanted to go back to her country at the time but did not have money to buy plane tickets, A-Chiu said that she was finally only able to get shelter through the kind help of the Good Shepherd Sisters.

Chen Chu (陳菊), chairwoman of the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA), speaking on the same occasion, said the number of immigrants to Taiwan has been increasing and that the government has already begun to show more concern for women who come here to marry Taiwanese men.

The CLA will cooperate with the Good Shepherd Sisters to help more abused women, Chen said.

She added that the council is also considering revising the Employment Service Law (就業服務法) to provide foreign and Chinese brides with more reasonable terms of employment.

The sisters said that more than 80 percent of the wives they interviewed had been abused or treated like servants at home.