Labor rights advocates yesterday called on the government to approve a long-awaited bill to protect whistle-blowers.
They made the call at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei ahead of International Whistleblower Day tomorrow. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wu Yu-chin (吳玉琴) accompanied representatives from the Taiwan Labor Front, and the Taiwan Occupational Safety and Health Link at the news conference.
The Ministry of Justice began drafting a whistle-blower protection bill in 2012, but has yet to finalize it 11 years later, Wu said.
Party caucuses and legislators have presented more than 10 versions of the bill, showing a high level of consensus among lawmakers, Taiwan Labor Front secretary-general Son Yu-liam (孫友聯) said.
A bill nearly passed in the legislature’s previous session, but it failed to make it through its third reading and was sent back to be deliberated on again, Wu added.
With only one meeting left in the current legislative session, Son urged the Cabinet to approve its version as soon as possible.
Most illegal activities, such as corruption, cannot be detected before they happen and are difficult to uncover soon afterward, which is to the detriment of society, Wu said.
Without legal protection, whistle-blowers might hesitate to come forward for fear of reprisal, even if they have the public’s best interests in mind, she said.
“If we are to be considered an uncorrupt society, we need legal protections for whistle-blowers,” she added.
The proposed bill seeks to address government inefficiency in responding to illegal activity and cover-ups by private organizations by allowing the judiciary to intervene early in whistle-blower cases, Wu said.
Son cited recent cases as examples, in which foreign students came forward to reveal they had been trapped in exploitative “internship” programs.
The incidents not only harmed the students’ rights, but also Taiwan’s reputation as a defender of human rights, and has resulted in some schools being ordered to stop accepting students, Son said.
The protections scattered through labor laws are insufficient to protect whistle-blowers, such as the students in the aforementioned case, he said.
Improving the protections and channels for whistle-blowers was listed as a priority in the Cabinet’s “National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights” published in December 2020, he said, urging the government to fulfill its promise.
Supporting whistle-blowers would also improve occupational safety, link executive director Huang Yi-ling (黃怡翎) said.
An estimated 320 people were killed in work accidents last year, marking a six-year high, Huang said.
Accidents cannot be prevented by inspections alone, but can be avoided if workers feel empowered to come forward to expose occupational hazards, she added.
Additional reporting by CNA
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