Taiwan Keeps Tier 1 ranking in Trafficking in Persons Report for 11 consecutive years

• Date： 2020-07-01
• Source：Anti-Human Trafficking Section
• Hit：1578

Taiwan’s efforts to combat human trafficking have once again successfully won international recognition. The U.S. Department of State issued its 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) which listed Taiwan as a Tier 1 country out of more than 180 countries evaluated, making it Taiwan’s 11th consecutive year of being awarded this status.  It demonstrates that the close partnership between the government, NGOs, and INGOs in the battle against human trafficking has worked fruitfully and once again earned Taiwan a place alongside other outstanding countries in preventing the crime.

The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) expressed that protecting human rights is the universal value our country strives to maintain, and preventing human trafficking is an important indicator for the implementation of human rights protection. During President Tsai’s tenure as Vice Premier of the Executive Yuan (EY) in 2007, she promoted the establishment of an integrated mechanism for the "Executive Yuan’s Coordination Conference for Prevention of Human Trafficking", an Executive-Yuan Board that combines the resources of various groups such as NGOs, experts and scholars, and central and local governments. This board meets regularly to coordinate and review human trafficking issues on a rolling basis and has laid a good foundation for the effective prevention of human trafficking in Taiwan. In addition, the "National Human Rights Commission" has been established and officially starts operations this year.  Both of these are important milestones for the protection of human rights in Taiwan.

The MOI further stated that the Executive Yuan, on the platform of its “Coordination Conference for Prevention of Human Trafficking”, has been studying strategies to combat human trafficking issues since January 2019 and came up with the “2019-2020 New Guardian Action Plan”, which increases the participating Central Government Ministries in the "Anti-TIP Task Force" from 16 to 19, including the Judicial Yuan, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Labor, Council of Agriculture of the Executive Yuan, and NGOs. These Central Government Ministries will all work together to cope with problems in depth, and promote the prevention of human trafficking in all aspects.

Regarding the prioritized recommendations in the 2020 TIP Report, authorities are urged to increase inspections on Taiwanese fishing vessels, especially those in the Distant Water Fleet (DWF); conduct comprehensive, victim-centered interviews to screen foreign fishing crewmembers for forced labor indicators; amend relevant policies and legislative loopholes to eliminate the imposition of all recruitment and service fees and deposits on immigrant workers, and formally include civil society input into the labor broker evaluation process. The government values these suggestions and will work towards improvement; all of the progress will be supervised by the Executive Yuan’s Coordination Conference for Prevention of Human Trafficking. The MOI has also scheduled to further develop version 2.0 of the new Guardian Action Plan at the end of this year in order to ameliorate the measures of human trafficking prevention.

Looking ahead, the MOI emphasized that our country will continue to strengthen partnerships between governments, NGOs, and INGOs, expand the level of exchanges and cooperation, and share anti-crime policies and measures to protect victims. We hope to reduce the prevalence of human trafficking again to duly fulfill our responsibilities as a member of the international community and as a global citizen.