Indonesia’s Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers yesterday called on authorities to ensure that a Taiwanese employer who allegedly raped an Indonesian caregiver is brought to justice.
The agency made the statement after a video was published on the Web site of Suarabmi, an Indonesian media outlet.
The Web site, www.suarabmi.com, published an Indonesian-language report on the story yesterday, with images of a messaging app conversation and a YouTube video that was unavailable because of YouTube’s policy on “nudity or sexual content.”
Photo copied by Chang Jui-hsiung, Taipei Times
The Taichung Police Department said that it received a call on the 1955 hotline — a toll-free, round-the-clock service run by the Ministry of Labor for foreign workers — at about 6pm on Friday.
The hotline said it had been contacted by a 31-year-old Indonesian woman who said she had been raped.
Police and Taichung labor officials went to her employer’s home and brought the woman to the police station.
Photo: CNA
Police notified her employment broker and sent for an interpreter to help with questioning.
However, police said they were unable to get a complete statement, as the woman fainted during questioning.
The woman was taken to a shelter and the report was postponed until yesterday, police said.
However, at about 11am yesterday, the woman was found with one of her wrists cut in an apparent suicide attempt and was taken to hospital.
Her condition has since stabilized, police said.
Police said that according to her incomplete account, she filmed her employer — a 58-year-old man, surnamed Hsieh (謝), whose father she had been hired to take care of — during the assault, with the footage dated July 30 and sent the video to her employment broker and a friend.
Police said the employment broker earlier this month suspected she might have been raped and asked her about it, to which she reportedly said she wanted to gather more evidence and call the police.
The woman and the agency agreed that the agency would collect her from her employer on Friday afternoon, but the woman had already called the 1955 hotline, which had contacted the police.
Police were inquiring into Hsieh’s whereabouts to bring him in for questioning.
Agency Deputy Director Agusdin Subiantoro said the Indonesian authority would pursue legal action to protect its overseas citizens and would ask the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office in Taipei to lodge a formal complaint should the employment broker fail to take action against the man.
The agency did not exclude the possibility of revoking the employment broker’s operating license, Subiantoro said.
The Taichung City Government’s Bureau of Labor said that foreign workers should report any inappropriate activity by employers, adding that the bureau’s labor help hotline is always open.
Additional reporting by Ho Tsung-han and CNA
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