Forced labor in Taiwan’s distant-water fishing fleet must be addressed, the Control Yuan said on Thursday, when it issued demands of government entities over the issue.
The US in a report on child and forced labor in September last year for the first time said that fish caught by Taiwanese-flagged vessels are products of forced labor.
“Crews on Taiwan-flagged vessels face confiscation of documents, long days with little rest, physical and verbal abuse, and lack of payment,” the US report said.
Photo: Hsieh Chun-lin, Taipei Times
Control Yuan member Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲) said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Labor and the Fisheries Agency have known about forced labor on the Taiwanese fleet since as early as 2019, when Greenpeace released a report on the issue.
The government bodies knew that Greenpeace would submit its findings to Washington, but took no concrete measures to address the issue, Wang said.
To spur reforms, the Control Yuan has demanded that the three bodies take corrective measures to ensure fishers’ rights are protected.
It is also urging the Executive Yuan to make changes, she said.
If this issue is not dealt with, Taiwan faces being banned from exporting fish to the US and Europe, Control Yuan member Tsai Chung-yi (蔡崇義) said.
Among the demands is that the Fisheries Agency assign more personnel to conduct inspections, and for it and the Ministry of Labor to educate the fisheries industry on human rights.
Executive departments should ensure that their employees have a clear understanding of what constitutes forced labor, as such cases are sometimes classified as employer-employee disputes, the Control Yuan said in a statement.
Cross-agency communication — within executive departments and between departments and the Judicial Yuan — is required so reports of forced labor are dealt with efficiently and perpetrators punished, the statement said.
The Executive Yuan is required to evaluate whether a ban on products of child labor and forced labor is needed, as well as review policies on migrant fishers, it said.
Taiwan has 1,106 distant-water fishing vessels and the sector employs about 22,000 migrant fishers, the Control Yuan said.
However, the US report said that an estimated 35,000 migrant workers, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines, work on such vessels, and that Taiwan’s fleet is the world’s second-largest, after China’s, the Control Yuan said.
The Fisheries Agency said in a statement that it would work to improve so Taiwan would not be included in a US report on child and forced labor again.
Taiwanese law says that after receiving a corrective measure issued by the Control Yuan, government departments should immediately make improvements or take appropriate action.
They should also reply to the Control Yuan in writing on improvements or actions.
If the Control Yuan receives no reply within two months, it may seek further details.
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man