Nation owes foreign laborers a lot: Chen

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that Taiwan's economic development owes a great deal to the contributions made by the 300,000 foreign laborers working here.

Chen said that one of the country's most urgent tasks is to ameliorate its human-rights protection and that while it must self-reflect on what it has yet to achieve in this regard, the efforts made to improve foreign workers' rights should not be forgotten.

He gave a speech at the opening ceremony of the International Society for Labor and Social Security Law's eighth conference in Asia.

Chen said that the government's work to improve working conditions for foreign laborers, such as implementing labor and health insurance are concrete examples of assuring their rights.

He said that the government is willing to be aligned with other relevant international organizations as well as to engage in talks with other Asian countries on foreign labor issues, so that Taiwan will be safer for such workers.

Chen quoted the UN Commission on Sustainable Development's charter, which says that without social justice, there can be no long-lasting peace. He said he expects that Taiwan will in the future become part of the international community and hopes to increase cooperation with it while pursuing democracy in politics and economic freedom.

He said that although Taiwan is not a member of any international labor organization, it still passed the Gender Equality in Employment Law (兩性工作平等法) in 2002. It integrated the spirit and the content of the International Labor Conventions, Chen said.