The nation was rocked by news earlier this week that smugglers were willing to toss their human cargo -- 26 Chinese women headed to Taiwan to work as prostitutes -- overboard in a bid to evade capture by Coast Guard Administration (CGA) patrol boats. While the smugglers' heinous conduct must be condemned, this case was more than just an isolated tragedy. The heavy trafficking in people from China is a very serious problem and one that is difficult to crackdown on.
During an inter-ministerial meeting on Tuesday at the Executive Yuan, the CGA and the Ministry of the Interior differed on what should be the target of a crackdown. According to the coast guard, the nation's extensive coastline is difficult to patrol, so it thinks the ministry should focus on reducing market demand for Chinese prostitutes by cracking down on brothels and the sex industry. The ministry, however, noted that once illegal Chinese migrants land in Taiwan, it is difficult to catch them since they can blend into the crowd. Although they may have different accents, this is not sufficient to arouse police suspicions, since many Chinese women are legal residents as a result of their marriage with Taiwanese.
An internal crackdown is also more likely to intrude on the rights and freedoms of citizens and legal residents. As Premier Yu Shyi-kun indicated during the meeting, while Taiwan may have a long coast line, the number of potential landing spots for traffickers are limited. This, however, does not let the ministry off the hook. Efforts must be made to reinforce the crackdown on illegal migration both at sea and on land.
Sea patrols are simply more effective, despite PFP Legislator Cheng San-yuan's (
To prevent a recurrence of the dump-and-run case, the four suspects in Tuesday's tragedy should be prosecuted for the murders of the six women who drowned. Hopefully, tough prosecution of those who traffic in human beings will deter such conduct.
At the same time, how much is the Chinese government doing to curb human trafficking? Not much. They have also been less than enthusiastic in repatriating Chinese illegal migrants and stowaways detained by Taiwan's authorities. There are more than 25,000 Chinese detainees awaiting repatriation right now. According to the Police Administration Bureau, the cost of providing room and board, health care and other essentials amounts to more than NT$100 million a year. That is a lot of taxpayers' money.
The large number of Chinese risking their lives to be smuggled into Taiwan -- and other countries -- is an indication of the serious economic and social problems that exist in China. People are willing to risk years of indebtedness, even their lives, to escape from a future with no hope of improvement. How ironic, that at a time when so many businesspeople and politicians in Taiwan view China as the land of golden opportunity -- and many who appear willing to sell their souls to Beijing -- there are thousands, even tens of thousands of Chinese who see Taiwan as the "land of fortune" and are willing to risk their lives to reach here.
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