Filipino laborers and human-rights groups protested the mistreatment of foreign workers outside the Executive Yuan yesterday, loudly chanting slogans such as "Anti-Trafficking and Anti-Slave System," and demanding that attention be paid to their plight.
"In September, Premier Frank Hsieh (
"There are many such cases and when attention is drawn to them, the foreign labor workers involved are often sent home. `White terror' in factories across Taiwan is a serious matter," she added.
Chen spoke of how some workers at Golden Sun Co were repatriated after protesting to the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) about their working conditions on May 21. There was also the case of 18 Filipino laborers, contracted to Formosa plastics, who were repatriated following a strike at the factory on July 14 and 15 in Mailiao Township (
According to Chen, laborers at Golden Sun Co often worked 16-hour shifts amounting to 200 hours a week, which contravenes labor laws specifying that overtime should not exceed 46 hours a month.
"We don't know why our salaries are so small, we work so many hours. We do so many hours overtime. We work from 8am until 12pm," said Carolyn, a Filipino worker at Golden Sun Co.
Rosemary, another Filipino worker at Kohkawa Co Ltd, spoke of how they were often woken up in the middle of the night to work by male supervisors, who were sometimes drunk.
The secretary-general of the Taiwan International Workers' Association, Ku Yu-ling (
"If this isn't human trafficking, then what is?" he said.
Chen expressed that they were protesting in front of the Executive Yuan because they hoped Premier Frank Hsieh would create an inter-departmental team to investigate and monitor human trafficking.
She said that the CLA had failed to respond to their pleas for a change in policy in the hiring of foreign labor for 6 years.
"Realistically, human trafficking involves many departments and not just the CLA," she said
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Joanna Lei (
Rain is to increase from Wednesday morning as Severe Tropical Storm Kong-Rey approaches, with sea warnings to be issued as early as tomorrow afternoon, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. As of 8am, Kong-Rey was 1,050km east-southeast of the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春) heading in a northwesterly direction toward Taiwan, CWA Forecast Center Director Lin Po-tung (林伯東) said. Rainfall is to increase from Wednesday morning, especially in northern Taiwan and Yilan County, he said. A sea warning is possible from tomorrow afternoon, while a land warning may be issued on Wednesday morning, he added. Kong-Rey may intensify into a moderate typhoon as it passes
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Taiwan yesterday issued warnings to four Chinese coast guard vessels that intruded into restricted waters around the Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Islands, according to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA). The four China Coast Guard ships were detected approaching restricted waters south of Kinmen at around 2 pm yesterday, the CGA’s Kinmen-Matsu Branch said in a statement. The CGA said it immediately deployed four patrol boats to closely monitor the situation. When the Chinese ships with the hull numbers "14512," "14609," "14603" and "14602" separately entered the restricted waters off Fuhsing islet (復興嶼), Zhaishan (翟山), Sinhu (新湖) and Liaoluo (料羅) at 3 pm, the Taiwanese patrol
MUCH-NEEDED: After China demonstrated its capabilities to deploy vertical launching systems, Taiwan needs air defense systems such as NASAMS, a defense expert said The US’ approval of exports of three advanced air defense missile systems to Taiwan signified NATO’s goodwill toward the nation, a Taiwanese defense expert said. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency on Friday announced the US$1.16 billion sale of the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) and the US$828 million sale of AN/TPS-77 and AN/TPS-78 radar turnkey systems. The NASAMS is a network that uses ground-launched Air Intercept Missile (AIM)-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) to intercept hostile aircraft, drones and cruise missiles. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), director of defense strategy and resources at the state-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said
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