Look, the World is Watching how We Treat Migrants! The Making of the Anti-Trafficking Legislation during the Ma Administration

Abstract

Employing the spiral model, this research analyses how anti-human trafficking legislation was promulgated during the Ma Ying-jeou (Ma Yingjiu) presidency. This research found that the government of Taiwan was just as accountable for the violation of migrants’ human rights as the exploitive placement agencies and abusive employers. This research argues that, given its reliance on the United States for political and security support, Taiwan has made great efforts to improve its human rights records and meet US standards for protecting human rights. The reform was a result of multilevel inputs, including US pressure and collaboration between transnational and domestic advocacy groups. A major contribution of this research is to challenge the belief that human rights protection is intrinsic to democracy. In the same light, this research also cautions against Taiwan's subscription to US norms since the reform was achieved at the cost of stereotyping trafficking victimhood, legitimising state surveillance, and further marginalising sex workers.

Motherhood, empowerment and contestation: the act of citizenship of vietnamese immigrant activists in the realm of the new southbound policy

“…Although publicised as exercising 'warm power' to advance 'human values' (Yang and Chiang 2019), the NSP's 'people-centred' aspiration is criticised for being vague and difficult to measure in terms of efficacy (Chen 2020). From the bottom up, the activists' advocacy for migrant workers further discredited the image as a 'human rights defender' carefully constructed by the Taiwanese state (Cheng and Momesso 2017). Mostly, their dynamic, complex and contentious interactions with the NSP underlined its hypocrisy and neoliberalism (Lan 2019) which is a 'terrain of struggle' (Stasiulis and Bakan 1997) for them to realise their act of citizenship.…”

Emerging port infrastructure and advocacy networks for migrant fishers in Taiwan

“…Since then, the government has increased its efforts and recently completed seven showering facilities in fishing ports with a large migrant fisher population (Chiu, 2022). As in many cases in Taiwan (Cheng and Momesso, 2017), this policy shift occurred primarily due to pressure from humanitarian organizations and other advocacy groups.…”

We want productive workers, not fertile women: The expediency of employing Southeast Asian caregivers in Taiwan

“…In this light, Southeast Asian caregivers would now seem to be recognised not only as productive workers but also as fertile women. It is hoped that voluntary compliance with international norms would create a positive international image and this image serves a strategic interest for Taiwan, given its international isolation (Cheng and Momesso, 2017). Since the slogan ‘nationhood founded on human rights protection’ ( renquan liguo ) was introduced by the DPP government in 2000, Taiwan has embarked on a steep learning curve of incorporating international human rights norms into its domestic laws, including migration legislation (MoL, 2014: 17).…”

“…This is evident in the promulgation of anti‐trafficking legislation in 2009 and in the gradual moderation of migrant spouses' naturalisation requirements in the 2000s during the DPP and KMT administrations. The former was undertaken by the KMT government largely due to the ‘name and shame’ approach taken by the United States for improving migrants' rights (Cheng and Momesso, 2017). The latter was attributed to local activists' criticism of the DPP government for paying lip service to the self‐proclaimed aspiration to human rights protection.…”