Human rights in Taiwan

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Republic of China Constitution to be effective in Taiwan. The human rights record in Taiwan is generally held to have experienced significant transformation since the 1990s
.

The citizens in Taiwan can change their government through elections and are held to enjoy most basic rights, according to a 2004 Freedom House report.[2] Freedom House rates Taiwan as among the most "Free" nations in Asia, with a 1 in both Political Rights and Civil Liberties (scale of 1-7, with 1 being the highest). This represents a significant improvement, as the 1973 rating was 6.5, rising to 2.1 by 2000. For much of the history of the Kuomintang (KMT) regime in Taiwan, from the retreat from the mainland in 1949 until the 1970s and 1980s, the state was highly autocratic and varying degrees of repression of political and civil rights existed. The Legislative Yuan debated and ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on 31 March 2009.[3]

History

Taiwan under Japanese rule

The human rights during the Japanese rule era experienced dramatic changes with three major phases. After the 1895 defeat of the Republic of Formosa, the Empire of Japan annexed Taiwan. The early Japanese administration appointed military governors. The colonial policies often limited the human rights of the Taiwanese people. After the Tapani incident in 1915 and Japan's involvement in World War I, the colonial governance was gradually liberalized. Taiwan became an extension of the Japanese Home Islands and the Taiwanese people were educated under a policy of assimilation.

The last phase of Japanese rule began with the eruption of the

Japanese Diet
, which theoretically would qualify a Taiwanese to become the prime minister of Japan eventually.

Taiwan under the Republic of China

Some of the autocracy in early

Nationalist China also reflects a continuation of the political attitudes of Taiwan in the early decades after its founding in 1912. Many Chinese leaders, following the thought of Sun Yat-sen, held it necessary to maintain strong centralized control, including a militarized regime, during the early part of the regime's history, feeling that the populace was "not ready" for full democracy. Political repression was heavy during the early Kuomintang-Taiwan period in the mainland under Chiang Kai-shek, who would retreat to Taiwan following the Chinese Civil War
.

Additionally, the history of Taiwan after 1945, in terms of political situation and human rights, displays multiple similarities with that of the

Asian Tigers
, and both are now recognized as relatively free societies with successful human rights developments in most areas.

The

a municipal councillor suggested that Taiwan's low fertility rate could be alleviated by making employers penalise unmarried and childless workers; this suggestion was widely rebuked for its infringement of the rights of the individual.[4]

discrimination against women, child prostitution and abuse, and trafficking of women and children
occurred.

In recent years, Taiwan's laws have focused on combating sexual discrimination, granting greater accommodation to conscientious objectors (Republic of China has obligatory national service), and upholding cultural and linguistic pluralism.

Mandarin
as the common language.

Labor rights

The labor movement in Taiwan began in the 1980s near the end of military rule.[5]

Foreign workers

There are more than 700,000

Domestic workers are required by law to live with their employing family and can not live outside their home. Many caretakers for the elderly and disabled sleep in the same room as the person they are caring for and lack their own space entirely. Employers in both industrial and domestic setting are allowed to deduct the cost of housing, food, etc. from their employee's wages.[7]

In March 2020 a fire at a factory in Taichung killed three Vietnamese workers living in the onsite dormitory. This tragedy renewed calls from labor rights activists for the abolishment of onsite dorms for foreign workers.[8]

Human Trafficking

The 2020 Trafficking In Persons Report by the U.S. State Department classifies Taiwan as Tier 1, meaning that Taiwan meets the minimum standards for combating trafficking in persons. The report states that Taiwanese "[a]uthorities continued to demonstrate serious and sustained efforts during the reporting period," leading to the department to keep Taiwan at Tier 1.[9]

Fishing industry

Taiwan's high seas fishing industry has bucked the trend of rapid improvement in human rights.[10] Official Taiwanese sources put the number of foreign workers aboard Taiwanese vessels at 26,000 but NGOs and US government agencies put the figure around 160,000. Foreign fishermen frequently report non-payment, long work hours, and verbal and physical abuse at the hands of their captains and officers, who are often Taiwanese.[6]

Between August 2018 and November 2019, the Environmental Justice Foundation interviewed 71 former Indonesian fishers who had previously worked on 62 Taiwanese vessels. Of these workers, 24% reported violent physical abuse, 92% reported having their wages withheld, and 82% reported working excessive overtime.[11] In addition, 8 vessels were reported harpooning dolphins to use as shark bait, half the vessels finned sharks and discarded the bodies, and 7 of the boats captured and killed false killer whales.[11]

The 2020 Trafficking In Persons Report reported that Taiwanese-flagged and -owned fishing vessels in Taiwan's Distant Water Fleet (DWF) are staffed by both documented and undocumented migrant workers from many countries, including Montenegro, Solomon Islands, Vietnam, Indonesia, China, and the Philippines.[9] The U.S. State Department also reports that current regulations still contain loopholes that can perpetuate debt bondage, such as allowing unlimited fees for recruitment and unspecified “reasonable service items.” [9] The Report also included that migrant fishermen "working on Taiwan-owned and -flagged fishing vessels experience non- or under-payment of wages, long working hours, physical abuse, lack of food or medical care, denial of sleep and substandard safety equipment, and poor living conditions while indebted to complex, multinational brokerage networks."[9] Migrant fishermen also report "senior crewmembers employ such coercive tactics as threats of physical violence, beatings, withholding of food and water, retention of identity documents, wage deductions, and non-contractual compulsory sharing of vessel operational costs to retain their labor."[9] These abuses are particularly prevalent in the DWF, with the vessels often stopping in remote islands and "mother ships", disabling transponders, fishing for years at a time, changing vessel names, and switching workers between vessels to evade law enforcement.[9]

Regulation

Unlike any other industry in Taiwan. the distant waters fishing fleet is not within the jurisdiction of the labor ministry. It is instead regulated by the Fisheries Agency which also has a mandate to support the industry. This responsibility for championing both the industry and protecting labor has been characterized as a conflict of interest by Greenpeace. In 2017 the Taiwanese Government introduced the Act for Distant Water Fisheries which was intended to increase government control and oversight over Taiwan's approximately 2,000 distant water fishing vessels. In particular the act sought to safeguard the rights of foreign workers aboard the vessels.[6]

Taiwan requires vessels to have a vessel monitoring system and any vessels engaging in transshipments at sea must report their movements within a short period of time, often a few hours.[12] However, this information is not open to public inquiry and infractions are rarely reported or enforced.[13]

In 2016, Taiwan's Council of Agriculture announced the Act for Distant Water Fisheries. Article 1 states that "[t]his Act is enacted to ensure the conservation of marine fisheries resources, strengthen distant water fisheries management, curb illegal, unreported, and unregulated... fishing, and improve traceability of catches and fisheries products, so as to promote the sustainable operation of distant water fisheries."[14]

In 2019, the EU lifted its IUU "yellow card" designation for Taiwan, following increased efforts by the government to address IUU fishing and reform the industry.[15] A "red card" designation would have resulted in exports from Taiwan being banned in the EU market.

NOAA's 2021 Report to Congress on Improving International Fisheries Management cites Taiwanese vessels continuing to violate "conservation measures in the WCPFC, IATTC, and ICCAT convention areas in 2018, 2019, or 2020 and for failing to take appropriate corrective actions."[16]

Incidents

In 2015, an Indonesian fisherman named Supriyanto died aboard the Taiwan-flagged Fu Tzu Chun under suspicious circumstances. The initial report by Taiwan's FA reported that he died of an infection. However, his body was thrown overboard, resurfacing in Taiwan, and fellow crew members corroborated that his death was due to the abuse by the captain and two crew members.[17]

In February 2019, eight foreign crew members were murdered by their officers aboard the Taiwan-flagged fishing vessel Wen Peng approximately 900 nautical miles off the south coast of Sri Lanka. Two were killed on the vessel and six were forced overboard, their bodies were never recovered.[6]

In June 2019, a 19-year-old Indonesian on board a Taiwanese fishing vessel died. A Fijian coroner ruled it due to a pulmonary edema. Fellow crew members corroborated that he received regular physical punishment in the head and neck, and only intervention from the crew prevented his body from being tossed overboard.[18]

Four fisheries observers have disappeared or died on Taiwanese-flagged or -owned fishing vessels, and the cases are still unsolved.[19]

LGBT rights in Taiwan

Main article: LGBT rights in Taiwan

Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage after a 2017 court ruling, becoming the first country in Asia to do so.[20]

Freedom of expression

In 2020 Taiwan denied a Filipino extradition request for a Filipino domestic worker wanted for criticizing President Rodrigo Duterte online. Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs which denied the request stated that she has the same right to freedom of speech while legally in Taiwan as any Taiwanese citizen.[21]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Preface". Archived from the original on 2005-03-12. Retrieved 2021-01-12.
  2. ^ [1] Archived November 22, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ "Taiwan signs up for human rights". www.amnesty.org. Archived from the original on 2019-02-17. Retrieved 2019-06-19.
  4. ^ Loa, Iok-sin (26 May 2012). "'Married with kids' proposal draws ridicule". Taipei Times. Archived from the original on 17 February 2019. Retrieved 22 February 2017.
  5. JSTOR 20066188. Archived
    (PDF) from the original on 2021-08-31. Retrieved 2020-03-31.
  6. ^ a b c d Aspinwall, Nick. "The Danger to Taiwan's High Seas Fishermen". www.maritime-executive.com. Maritime Executive. Archived from the original on 10 February 2022. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  7. ^ Timmerman, Antonia. "In Taiwan's 'container houses' for migrant workers, coronavirus not the only health risk". www.scmp.com. SCMP. Archived from the original on 26 April 2020. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  8. ^ Aspinwall, Nick. "Taiwan Factory Fire Kills 3 Foreign Workers After Calls to Abolish On-Site Dorms Go Unanswered". thediplomat.com. The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 29 March 2020. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  9. ^ a b c d e f "2020 Trafficking in Persons Report". United States Department of State. Archived from the original on 2021-11-24. Retrieved 2021-11-24.
  10. ^ Morris, James X. "The Dirty Secret of Taiwan's Fishing Industry". thediplomat.com. The Diplomat. Archived from the original on 5 December 2019. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
  11. ^ a b "Widespread abuse and illegal fishing as Taiwan's fleet remains out of…". Environmental Justice Foundation. Archived from the original on 2021-11-24. Retrieved 2021-11-24.
  12. ^ "Taiwan can still do better on fishing - Taipei Times". www.taipeitimes.com. 2021-08-30. Archived from the original on 2021-11-24. Retrieved 2021-11-24.
  13. ^ "Global Evaluation Of Fisheries Monitoring Control And Surveillance In 84 Countries" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2022-02-10. Retrieved 2022-01-13.
  14. ^ "Act for Distant Water Fisheries". Archived from the original on 2022-02-10. Retrieved 2022-01-13.
  15. ^ "Press corner". European Commission - European Commission. Archived from the original on 2020-08-25. Retrieved 2021-11-24.
  16. ^ Fisheries, NOAA (2021-08-12). "Report on IUU Fishing, Bycatch and Shark Catch | NOAA Fisheries". NOAA. Archived from the original on 2021-11-24. Retrieved 2021-11-24.
  17. ^ Aspinwall, Nick (2018-05-24). "Welcome to Taiwan: Beatings, Bodies Dumped at Sea and a Culture of Maritime Abuse". The News Lens International Edition. Archived from the original on 2021-11-24. Retrieved 2021-11-24.
  18. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived
    from the original on 2021-11-24. Retrieved 2021-11-24.
  19. ^ "Observer Deaths and Disappearances". Association for Professional Observers. Archived from the original on 2022-01-26. Retrieved 2022-01-13.
  20. ^ "Thousands attend Taiwan's first pride since legalisation of gay marriage". www.theguardian.com. The Guardian. AFP. Archived from the original on 9 April 2020. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  21. ^ Everington, Keoni. "Taiwan says Filipina caregiver has freedom of speech to criticize Duterte". www.taiwannews.com.tw. Archived from the original on 28 April 2020. Retrieved 28 April 2020.

External links

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