Hundreds of foreign migrant workers yesterday held a rally in Taipei calling for the broker system to be replaced with a “government to government” (G2G) scheme.
Since 2003, the Migrants Empowerment Network in Taiwan (MENT) has hosted a rally once every two years to push for better working conditions for migrant workers in Taiwan, organizers said.
More than a dozen groups, including the Taiwan International Workers’ Association, the Hsinchu Catholic Diocese Migrants and Immigrants Service Center, the Confederation of Taipei Trade Unions, the Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ) Hotline Association and the Awakening Foundation, were represented at yesterday’s rally.
Photo: CNA
MENT estimated that more than 500 people participated.
Starting at about 1:45pm, migrant workers and advocates marched from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) headquarters to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) headquarters, before stopping outside the Ministry of Labor near Taipei Railway Station.
Demonstrators held signs with messages such as: “You select and purchase us, but we are people too,” and “We are human not products.”
As they marched, they chanted their demand: “We want G2G. Abolish the broker system.”
The rally’s organizers said that they spent a year collecting the stories of 15 migrant workers from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam to be printed as a book.
The wanted to present copies of the book to the presidential candidates of the KMT and the DPP, they said.
“We pay so much money,” a Philippine migrant worker who asked to be identified as Iyah said.
Iyah said she must pay her broker NT$1,800 per month in the first year of her three-year contract, NT$1,700 per month during the second year and NT$1,500 per month during the third.
After the third year, the payment cycle restarts, said Iyah, who says she has been working in Taiwan for nearly eight years.
She said she used her one day off this month to join the rally.
“Some of my friends don’t have a day off,” she added.
The Taiwan Tongzhi (LGBTQ) Hotline Association has been supporting the rights of migrant workers for many years, association secretary-general Tsai Ying-chih (蔡瑩芝) said.
“As a minority, we very much understand this kind of situation of not being able to stand up, yet constantly being hurt,” she said.
“So as a LGBT group we also wanted to come and support” the migrant workers, she said.
About 200 police officers were sent to the rally, a media liaison officer with the Taipei City Police Department said.
Additional reporting by CNA
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS