Once billed as merely a challenge to the government, human trafficking has snowballed to the point of "threatening national security" amid a surge in the number of foreigners who go missing after arriving in Taiwan, immigration experts said yesterday, adding that the crisis will likely worsen as the government fumbles in its efforts to fight it.
Speaking to immigration officials and experts at the International Conference on Human Trafficking in Taipei yesterday, US Deputy Assistant Attorney General Grace Becker called such trafficking the "largest human rights violation in today's world."
The problem is set to further intensify, she added, as the number of people traversing international borders to find work doubles annually, as it has for the past seven years.
Local charity workers said such trends mean the country must heed Becker's advice to foster a progressive attitude in handling trafficked foreigners, many of whom drop off the government's radar and become sex slaves known only to the underworld.
Traveling with US Department of Justice officials yesterday, Becker said the key to fighting human trafficking is to "empower" trafficked people and overlook the crimes -- especially prostitution -- that they were forced or swindled into committing by traffickers.
Earning the victims' trust, Becker added, typically leads to their divulging information that allows authorities to root out the "big fish," the traffickers.
"We believe in the US, like I'm sure you do in Taiwan, that treating victims with care exemplifies our highest values," she said.
But the charities helping exploited foreign laborers and prostitutes say that treating trafficked foreigners with care is exactly what Taiwan isn't doing.
Le My-nga, policy and planning director at the Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office in Taoyuan County, said local immigration authorities "still criminalize [trafficked] victims" and "aren't addressing the root causes of human trafficking."
"They're still in damage control mode," she said, referring to the attitude of immigration officials since 2005, when the US added Taiwan to a "watch list" for countries that aren't doing enough to combat human trafficking.
American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) official Brad Parker, who reports to Washington on the country's human trafficking situation, said Taiwan was put on the "Tier 2 Watch List" in the State Department's annual Trafficking in Human Persons report because "Taiwan, after being made aware of its human trafficking problem, hadn't made any significant corrections for two years."
"There was a sense in Washington that Taiwan wasn't actively addressing the problem," he added.
The 2005 Kaohsiung riot involving hundreds of Thai laborers who set fire to their dormitory after being pushed to breaking point by local employers was a watershed moment for Washington, which put Taiwan on the Tier 2 Watch List shortly after the incident, Parker said.
"That got our attention. We began digging deeper after that," he said.
Two years later, the dirt the US dug up on Taiwan's trafficking situation continues to mount, said Peter O'Neill, chaplain of the Hsinchu Catholic Diocese, which runs a "Migrant Concern Desk."
O'Neill lamented the lack of legal counsel for trafficked laborers after they run away from exploitive employers and get collared by police for breaking the terms of their labor agreement.
Local judges too often deport the laborers without any lawyers present, O'Neill said.
In 2002, the number of "unaccounted for" Southeast Asian immigrants in Taiwan -- common victims of trafficking -- totaled 8,135, Taitung County Police Department official Chen Ming-an (
They came here on labor or marriage visas but then vanished, he said, adding that most women among those missing foreigners went underground, almost always against their will, to sell sex.
Fast forward to last year: the figure for missing Indonesians, Filipinos, Thais, Vietnamese and Mongolians was 16,142, nearly double the number just four years earlier, while the number of prostitution arrests involving foreign women soared from 41 in 2002 to nearly 200 last year, Chen said.
Such conditions, Becker told interior ministry officials, give rise to "modern day slavery," the "most pernicious form [of which] is the trafficking of women and children into a dark world of sexual servitude where virgin rape ... abuse and disease amount to a virtual death sentence for the young and vulnerable."
Eight Chinese naval vessels and 24 military aircraft were detected crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait between 6am yesterday and 6am today, the Ministry of National Defense said this morning. The aircraft entered Taiwan’s northern, central, southwestern and eastern air defense identification zones, the ministry said. The armed forces responded with mission aircraft, naval vessels and shore-based missile systems to closely monitor the situation, it added. Eight naval vessels, one official ship and 36 aircraft sorties were spotted in total, the ministry said.
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reported the return of large-scale Chinese air force activities after their unexplained absence for more than two weeks, which had prompted speculation regarding Beijing’s motives. China usually sends fighter jets, drones and other military aircraft around the nation on a daily basis. Interruptions to such routine are generally caused by bad weather. The Ministry of National Defense said it had detected 26 Chinese military aircraft in the Taiwan Strait over the previous 24 hours. It last reported that many aircraft on Feb. 25, when it spotted 30 aircraft, saying Beijing was carrying out another “joint combat
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) today said that if South Korea does not reply appropriately to its request to correct Taiwan’s name on its e-Arrival card system before March 31, it would take corresponding measures to alter how South Korea is labeled on the online Taiwan Arrival Card system. South Korea’s e-Arrival card system lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan)” in the “point of departure” and “next destination” fields. The ministry said that it changed the nationality for South Koreans on Taiwan’s Alien Resident Certificates from “Korea” to “South Korea” on March 1, in a gesture of goodwill and based on the
RSS