Three years ago, a migrant worker in Taiwan was tortured by her employer. Three years later, she still seeks justice.
By Fr. Peter O’Neill

Ten months after she arrived at the Hope Workers’ Center, Siti-Aniyah held photos showing the injuries inflicted by her employers.

The tragic story of Siti-Aniyah Tugiman’s past three years began when she arrived in Taiwan from her home country of Indonesia in June 2000. She came as a foreign domestic worker hired to care for a young couple’s 2-year-old twins who suffer from polio.

Siti-Aniyah’s dream was to earn money and better her family’s future in the rich country of Taiwan. In tears, she left behind her newborn son in her mother’s care. Her husband, meanwhile, continued to earn a meager wage in the Indonesian rice fields so the family could survive on one meal a day.

At first, Siti-Aniyah’s employers were kind, and she enjoyed her work. But three months into her employment, the wife began to inflict continual physical abuse on Siti-Aniyah. For nine months, she was physically and mentally tortured by the woman.

One year after she began her employment, she was rescued from her living hell and brought to our Columban-run Hope Workers’ Center (HWC) shelter by the Taipei County Migrant Workers’ Counseling Center.

The image of Siti-Aniyah’s battered and bruised body will remain etched in my memory for life. Her body was black and blue; the rawness of her scars expressed the intolerable pain she endured for nine months. She wore a patch over her right eye, which the wife had poked in a fit of sheer rage. Today, Siti-Aniyah is nearly blind in that eye.

“Fr. Peter, I want to go home. I miss my son,” she pleads sobbingly. Her natural cry of desperation sends a knife through my heart. Courageously, she has clung onto hope for so long. It angers me that the judge has yet to hand down a verdict. Why is this so?

Taiwan’s legal system is based upon an outdated inquisitorial German system that dates back to the 1850s. Under this system, judges are not bound by any rules and are not very concerned about individual rights. There is no step-by-step sequence as in the United States and British judicial systems. This is why Siti-Aniyah’s case has languished for so long.

When Siti-Aniyah came to our center, she was counseled by our center’s Indonesian social worker who accompanied her six times to see a practitioner and a psychiatrist. Siti-Aniyah was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Our center’s Taiwanese social worker acted as Siti-Aniyah’s legal aid during negotiations with her employer. Migrant workers in Taiwan cannot afford to hire lawyers, and the government does not provide them. After several negotiations chaired by a government representative, the wife still denied Siti-Aniyah’s physical abuse, saying that she had fallen down repeatedly.

At one meeting, the woman brought a congressman. He recommended that she give Siti-Aniyah $580 (U.S. dollars) in compensation. She’s just a poor Indonesian girl was the thinking. Why give her any more? The racist and prejudiced attitudes were obvious.

Siti-Aniyah’s only avenue for justice was to sue her employer. In August 2001, she filed a criminal case against her employer for her injuries. Within 10 days, Siti-Aniyah had her first court hearing with her prosecutor present, but there was no judge.

The next month, she returned to court two times with no judge present. Then the usual long wait began. For seven months, we continued to inquire about the status of the next court hearing. Siti-Aniyah’s case was going nowhere fast.

Fr. Peter O’Neill took part in a press conference and protest in April held in front of the Taiwan Council of Labor Affairs. The protest was designed to raise awareness in Taiwanese society about the abuse of foreign and domestic workers and caretakers.

Both times, the woman’s reply was “No!” The test showed her answers were not true. At this point, Siti-Aniyah was denied a lie-detector test by the court because of Siti-Aniyah’s language difficulties. The test would not be conclusive.

In November 2002, 14 months after Siti-Aniyah filed her case, the prosecutor filed a formal indictment. It took the prosecutor all this time to conclude that the woman physically abused Siti-Aniyah. If found guilty, the woman would be sentenced from five to 13 years in prison.

In January this year, Siti-Aniyah finally had her day in court before a judge. At this hearing, she filed her civil case for compensation for her injuries. The woman’s lawyer wanted the court to investigate the validity of the woman’s lie-detector test. The investigative office said the results of the lie test were conclusive.

At this point, we asked the judge to allow Siti-Aniyah to undergo the same test, the same request we would make two more times over the next four months. The judge finally agreed to allow Siti-Aniyah to take the test. The court has not yet released the results.

To make matters more complicated and frustrating, there was confusion about scheduling further court hearings. Then in September 2003, all prosecutors in Taiwan were assigned to new cases.

We have just recently learned who Siti-Aniyah’s new prosecutor will be, and we have requested a meeting with him. The court clerk has told us that the judge will probably announce his verdict after the next hearing, which, as this magazine was going to press, was scheduled for October. Hope springs eternal!

If the woman is found guilty on the most serious of the two charges (causing “serious injury”), she can appeal the sentence to a higher court. This will take at least another year. If the court upholds the verdict, she can appeal the sentence to the Taiwanese Supreme Court. This will take another year. Only after the criminal case has been settled can the civil case for compensation begin. Siti-Aniyah may need to wait another two years before she receives compensation from her abusive employer.

If the woman is found guilty on the lesser charge (causing “injury”), she may not be incarcerated, but will be required to pay a fine. In this case, the civil case can begin, but the amount Siti-Aniyah could receive would be considerably less than if the woman is convicted of the more serious offense.

An Unjust System
Siti-Aniyah’s ordeal is inhumane and unjust. After being abused by her employer, she now is victimized by Taiwan’s inept legal system. Requests for money (so Siti-Aniyah can hire a lawyer) from a fund created by fees Taiwanese employers must pay the government to hire migrant workers have fallen on deaf ears.

Our optimism now lies in a recent change to the Taiwanese court system. Now, a judge will continue to oversee a case until its completion. Hopefully this will speed up court hearings, and no other migrant workers will need to suffer an ordeal like Siti-Aniyah’s.

Like Siti-Aniyah, women migrants working in the service sector are vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse, many cases of which our HWC workers have documented. These abuses are the result of poor legal protections, inadequate access to legal support and ineffective law enforcement.

In April this year, Siti-Aniyah and other abused migrant workers at the HWC shelter joined a protest and press conference in front of the Taiwan Council of Labor Affairs. They demanded that the government introduce a human-rights based contract for migrant domestic workers and caregivers. Six months later, we still await the government’s response.

In the meantime, the HWC and other nonprofit groups have written proposed legislation that would hopefully prevent cases of migrant worker abuse. Until some safeguards are enacted, the Taiwan government has no right to claim it protects migrants’ human rights.

A Mother’s Longing
Siti-Aniyah’s son is now 4 years old. She longs to return home to feel his embrace. Siti-Aniyah has languished in Taiwan for more than three years now.

This gentle woman of immense courage has inspired me to hold onto my own flicker of hope as I journey with the migrant workers who are used and abused as cheap labor in Taiwan.

My hope is in my God as proclaimed by the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 42:3): “He does not break the crushed reed, nor quench the wavering flame.”

Columban Father Peter O’Neill of Australia is the director of the Hope Workers’ Center. He served as coordinator for the Taiwan Mission Unit from 1997 to 2003.