Taiwan and the US began cooperating on training law enforcement personnel in identifying and protecting victims after the Human Trafficking Prevention Act (人口販運防治法) was enacted last month, Cabinet officials said yesterday.
Minister without Portfolio Kao Su-po (高思博), who also serves as head of an anti-human trafficking task force, made the remark at a three-day International Workshop on Strategies for Combating Human Trafficking that opened in Taipei yesterday.
The acting director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Taipei Office, Robert Wang, praised Taiwan at the workshop for its efforts in combating human trafficking.
“Human trafficking is an issue that impacts all countries, including the US,” he said.
“It weakens legal economic activities, causes violence, destroys families and has an impact on education and public security,” he said.
Estimates say there are more than 12 million people who are human trafficking victims around the world, he said.
The global economic crisis has made workers more vulnerable as they struggle to support their families, he said.
“Today, we’re working with Taiwan to make sure that every person in the human trafficking network is punished, and that every victim is well protected,” he said.
Kao said the workshop would train frontline law enforcement personnel in Taiwan about how to identify human trafficking victims and how to protect them.
The first lesson was to distinguish between smugglers and victims.
Law enforcement agencies in Taiwan have been criticized by immigration and human rights groups for treating human trafficking victims as criminals because they can’t differentiate between smugglers and their victims, as well as lack of protection for victims.
Taiwan is not the only country facing this problem.
“One of the biggest global challenges is the failure to make the distinction between [human] trafficking and smuggling,” said Fanny Chu, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement attache in Hong Kong. “Human smuggling may involve elements of violence, however, the presence of these aggravating factors alone does not constitute human trafficking.”
“Elements [of human trafficking] are force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of commercial sex or forced labor,” she said, adding that human smuggling involves people who are voluntarily smuggled into a country, and it has no victims.
It’s important to provide a safe shelter for trafficking victims and grant them rights, such as the right to work so that they would be willing to work with law enforcement agencies to root out human trafficking networks, she said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
RSS