SE Asian women main human trafficking victims
(The China Post)
Updated: 2005-06-17 10:09

The number of Southeast Asian women brought to Taiwan as brides but forced into prostitution has surged sharply in the past two years, according to a police officer.

In a report on the well-being of foreign wives married to Taiwanese men, Wang Mei-chuan, foreign affairs section chief at the Chiayi County Police Department, reported that an increasing number of foreign women are singing the dirge of being forced into sex slaves.

Delivering her study report at a seminar sponsored by a women relief foundation yesterday, Wang said that there were just two entertainment facilities in Chiayi found to have Southeast women working as prostitutes two years ago.

But the number has soared to 129 so far this year, Wang said.

Most of the women were from Vietnam and Indonesia who were supposed to become wives of local men.

But a police investigation found that many of these were controlled by human trafficking syndicates that first lent money to the women and then arranged marriages with "surrogate husbands" who stand to reap monthly income of between NT$10,000 and NT$15,000 per month without having to do anything.

An executive secretary at the Eden Social Welfare Foundation said that some Vietnamese and Indonesians have actually taken part in the human trafficking operations to sell out their own compatriots.

Separately, there are about 3,000 Taiwan children stranded in Vietnam after their mothers brought them back to Vietnam following the breakup of marriages with Taiwanese husbands.

In addition to broken marriages, many Vietnamese simply escaped back to their homeland with their children.

An official of the Eden Social Welfare Foundation said these Taiwanese children are unable to go to school for formal education in Vietnamese because they hold no citizenship in that nation.

The children will all become illiterate if they don't receive formal education in time, she said.

The foundation is teaming up the Business Weekly magazine to raise NT$10 million in order to set up 10 kindergartens in Vietnam to teach the children the Chinese language and pave the way for their future return to Taiwan.

The Eden Social Welfare Foundation has set up a special postal remittance account No. 05793779 to accept public donation.

The official of the foundation urged people to either contribute NT$12,000 in a lump sum or NT$1,000 per month for a period of 12 months to help set up the charitable fund.

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