A Vietnamese-born Columban runs a ministry in Taiwan that helps Vietnamese migrants escape the horrors of labor and sex exploitation.
By Kathy Boyle

Columban Father Peter Nguyen Van Hung

A growing awareness of the extent of human trafficking and labor exploitation led Fr. Hung to establish the Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office (VMWBO), an extension of the Columbans’ Hope Workers’ Center in Taiwan’s Chungli City. While the Hope Workers’ Center works with migrants of many nationalities. Fr. Hung’s unique position as a Vietnamese priest has led him to work exclusively with his own people.

Fr. Hung’s work was honored by the U.S. State Department in its June 2006 Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. Fr. Hung and the VMWBO staff were named as one of 10 “Heroes Acting to End Modern-Day Slavery.” Fr. Hung and the staff have helped more than 2,000 Vietnamese escape the horrors of labor and sex exploitation since 2004. The VMWBO has rescued, sheltered and rehabilitated victims of trafficking as well as pushed for the prosecution of employers, labor brokers and traffickers in Taiwanese courts. You can read about the work of Fr. Hung and the others honored at www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2006/67020.htm .

There are about 95,000 Vietnamese laborers in Taiwan. A laborer seeking work in Taiwan must work with a broker in Vietnam who, in return for as much as $4,000, helps the worker find employment in a factory, as a domestic servant or as a caregiver for an elderly or disabled person. This large broker’s fee is often beyond what laborers can afford, so most borrow this large sum.

These workers arrive in Taiwan expecting to repay the fee from the higher wages they will receive, sending much of the rest back home to their families. What they don’t realize is that migrant workers are paid at the minimum-wage rate well below what local workers receive for the same work—and that deductions are made from their wages for accommodations, insurance, food and taxes.

Should a worker complain, an employer can threaten to void his or her contract and can be sent home with the broker’s debt still unpaid.

Beyond this exploitation of cheap labor, workers often are victims of sexual abuse and rape, industrial accidents because of poor safety practices and standards, unfair dismissal, illegal coerced kickbacks to brokers and employers and other forms of exploitation.

The VMWBO’s full-time social workers educate workers about their rights under Taiwanese labor laws by providing psychological and legal assistance to victims, emergency shelter and a supportive and compassionate environment.

In addition to Vietnamese migrant workers, Taiwan hosts more than 100,000 Vietnamese “foreign brides.” These women, faced with extreme poverty, often seek the financial security of a Taiwanese husband.

Men, often older, who seek a foreign bride pay a broker up to $8,000 to arrange a trip to Vietnam for the prospective husband. The man then decides if he wants to marry the woman and makes arrangements for the bride to travel to Taiwan.

These brides are considered the husband’s property and often are treated as slaves. Domestic violence, sexual abuse and rape, confiscation of papers and virtual imprisonment are sometimes the outcome of these marriages.

The VMWBO helps these exploited women caught in abusive situations. The office helps women get new papers issued when they have run away from their situation and cannot prove their identity or status.

Kathy Boyle is the Columban Society's director of Mission Education in Australia.