Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Taiwankengo/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
A GROUP OF scholars and civil society organizations released a statement earlier this month about the Pingtung District Prosecutors’ Office’s decision not to prosecute the vessel owners of the You-fu. Specifically, the statement criticizes the failure of Pingtung prosecutors to charge the vessel owners on charges of human trafficking. The signatory organizations were the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the Taiwan Labour Front. Serve the People Association, International Center of Cultural Studies, and Work Better Innovations.
The You-fu is a fishing vessel that came under scrutiny last year after ten Indonesian fishermen who worked aboard, in coordination with Taiwanese civil society groups, sought to call attention to the fact that they had been denied fifteen months of wages last year. The You-fu normally operates out of a port in Liouciou Township in Pingtung County. Workers were owed 2.64 million NT, which is 80,850 USD.
The fishermen who worked on the You-fu did not have WiFi access onboard. As such, while working on the vessel, they could not even confirm that their family members had not received the money they were owed. Likewise, the fishermen were unable to report labor abuses on the vessel without Wifi access.
This is a broader issue facing migrant fishermen. The lack of wi-fi access for many migrant fishermen cuts them off from friends and family for months at a time. This isolation contributes to the stresses of work under conditions that are already harsh, seeing as fishing vessels do not return to shore for months at a time. According to the Fisheries Agency, while there are more than 2,000 vessels in Taiwan’s fishing fleet, only 116 have wi-fi. Of those, only 92 give wi-fi access to members of the crew, rather than just the captain.
One of the migrant fishermen, Feri Rahardjo, stated that his aunt had died and his home was on the verge of being seized because of the lack of payments. Otherwise, fishermen highlighted that food deliveries to the fishing vessel were delayed twice, resulting in the fishermen only having instant noodles and fish bait to eat. Fishermen also stated that bedbugs prevented them from sleeping on the fishing vessel.
The owners of the You-fu later stated that the fishermen would be paid. Though the workers were paid what they were owed, as well as an extra 2,000, an investigation by the Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice of Kaohsiung city found eight fishermen to have been victims of human trafficking. These fishermen have mostly remained in Taiwan at shelters. The Investigation Bureau found that the vessel owners were in violation of the Human Trafficking Prevention Act and fraud provisions under the Criminal Code. Yet civil society organizations later learned that the Pingtung District Prosecutors’ Office later decided against the view that remuneration was disproportionate for the fishermen and did not pursue such charges.
In particular, the civil society organizations and experts criticized Pingtung prosecutors for not understanding what constitutes human trafficking according to international standards. Such experts have cited that the vessel owners broke the contract by withholding payment, even if the fishermen were later paid what they were owed.
To this extent, the Pingtung District Prosecutors’ Office decided that the fishermen did not face conditions that could be categorized as human trafficking because they agreed to receive the wages after fifteen months, as well as that they agreed to voluntarily surrender their passports to the vessel owner.
Yet the International Labor Organization’s definition of forced labor is that “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.” In this case, vessel owners clearly faced the threat of punishment and could not be said to have voluntarily agreed to these conditions.
This proves another case in which Taiwanese authorities have given flagrant abuses of migrant worker rights a pass, or treated guilty parties with simply a slap on the wrist. Still, with Pingtung prosecutors dragging their heels, it proves unfortunate that they do not act on the findings of the Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice.