The Taiwan Immigration Agency is this week hosting the 2018 International Workshop on Strategies for Combating Human Trafficking, and has invited experts from all over the world to discuss how to abolish human trafficking. NGO coalition ‘Human Rights for Migrant Fishers’ today staged a protest, claiming the government is not doing enough to eradicate human rights abuses and human trafficking in the fishing industry and that some policies may even pave the way for such abuse.
According to the Human Rights for Migrant Fishers coalition, Taiwan does not do nearly enough to combat exploitation and inhumane working and living conditions for the most vulnerable migrant workers; those on Taiwanese fishing vessels, and especially the distant water fishing fleet. Some of its policies even create the conditions for human rights abuses.
“The Government has been claiming that it has largely enhanced the protection for the migrant workers. However, ironically, the first vessel detained for violating the Work in Fishing Convention since the end of 2017 after it came into force was a Taiwanese vessel,” said Shih Yi- Hsiang, deputy secretary general of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
The NGOs point to the latest US Trafficking in Persons Report, which highlighted recent cases such as the 81 migrant fishers locked in a cramped basement while their vessel was in port, and the behaviour of Taiwanese company Giant Oceans, which trafficked Cambodian fishers without being sanctioned.
“There is still a significant gap between Taiwan’s regulations and international standards. Currently Taiwan’s systems cannot effectively protect migrant fishers from trafficking,” commented Environmental Justice Foundation deputy director Max Schmid.
“The Taiwan government must urgently ratify international conventions, including the Work in Fishing Convention, and robustly implement laws to address both human rights abuses and the related problem of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
“Although the US Trafficking in Persons Report has given Taiwan a tier 1 ranking, the highest there is, for the last nine years, it has also emphasised the human rights abuse in Taiwan’s distant water fisheries in every single year’s report. It shows that the problem has always been there, but the government only tries to cover it up instead of really dealing with it,” said Allison Lee, secretary general of the Yilan Migrant Fishermen Union.
“The current regulations cannot stop the human rights abuse – in fact they might even drive it. For instance, migrant workers are not allowed to freely change jobs – legally they have to have permission from their current boss or the government. Some employers use this to threaten workers,” said Chen Hsiulien, secretary general of the Taiwan International Workers Association.
