I have parents-in-law, a baby, and my husband is sick. I can’t support the whole family just by farming... A Vietnamese migrant worker said " The bitterness behind smuggling to Taiwan"
The author, judicial interpreter Luo Yiwen, makes the migrant workers involved in the case feel that "no one understands what I say anymore" and relieves the migrant workers of their fear, vulnerability, confusion and isolation.
The so-called "illegal foreign workers" often make people mistakenly think that the workers have committed illegal activities such as killing, setting fires, and robbing banks. In fact, most of them just want to change to a suitable job, work more overtime, and save more money to send back to their hometown.
In late autumn, a middle-aged North Vietnamese woman collapsed while cleaning the building. A colleague sent him to the emergency room, where he was diagnosed with diabetes complicated by multiple organ failure. The cost of hospitalization for 10 days totaled NT$270,000. National Taiwan University Hospital notified the Immigration Department’s Taipei special team to pick him up.
In the cold interrogation room, she was short and thin, with sparse hair sticking to her sweaty forehead. She weakly told her story: She has in-laws, a child, her husband is sick, and the burden of the family is all on her. She couldn't make a living just by farming, and there were no jobs in her hometown to increase her income, so she gritted her teeth and borrowed US$2,500 and boarded the ship alone in the dark. After arriving in Taiwan, she called her family. She stayed in Taiwan for 3 years and 7 months. Because she was frail and sick, she could only find part-time jobs with low wages, such as cleaning, washing vegetables, washing dishes, etc. However, she cut down on clothing and diet, scraping together things here and there, and still remitted NT$120,000 back home one after another. Home.
It was the first time I met such a sick client.
Taking advantage of the break in translation, I took out my phone and calculated: "Including the NT$120,000 and after being discharged from the hospital, she still has NT$38,000, which is equivalent to US$5,600. Less the smuggling fee, the net profit is US$3,100. If she stays in Vietnam , find a factory job. The average monthly salary of blue-collar workers in Vietnam is NT$6,500. If you work for 43 months, you will get about US$9,900. After deducting expenses, it should be better than smuggling, right?
"However, traditional ethics will constrain the married woman to stay at home to take care of the elderly, weak and sick family members, and cannot leave to work in industrial areas in other provinces. Even if she went, with her health conditions, she would not be able to compete with young workers. Was he rejected at the application level? So he had no choice but to sneak across.
"There is a certain stubborn factor hidden in her bones. If fate gives more opportunities, if she does not fall into the hospital due to illness, she should be able to save more money, right? But being so frugal on food and expenses, malnutrition, sooner or later Will you fall ill?"
My mind was spinning in circles with random thoughts. However, the young dedicated team member has changed his tone of voice to be gentler, and plans to help ask the Vietnam office if there is a humanitarian ticket for her to return to her hometown early.
National Taiwan University Hospital very considerately printed out a complete stack of English cases and asked the special team to pass them on so that she could take them back and show them to Vietnamese doctors to avoid interrupting treatment. National Taiwan University Hospital also followed the rules and issued a slip with the remittance account number. The woman nervously asked me in a low voice: "This fee is too high, how can I afford it?"
I was immediately speechless and thought about it for a long time. Na Na said, "Sister, please go back to Vietnam to relax and recuperate. We will talk about other things later."
In order to protect the employment rights of its own people, when the government allows foreigners to come to work in Taiwan, it usually has strict restrictions, such as the types of jobs they can only do and the types of employers they can work for. Not sure why, but blue-collar workers in Vietnam have to pay about US$5,000 on average to entrust Vietnamese agents to help find job vacancies. Only after confirming that I have a job can I obtain an entry permit from the Taiwan government. But when they went abroad and started working, they discovered various problems, such as not getting along with their bosses, actual wages being too low, and working hours being cut.
Logically speaking, these are situations that every ordinary salaried person will encounter, and they can be solved by changing jobs. However, a law passed several years ago stipulates that foreigners are not allowed to change employers at will. If you resign, you must leave the country immediately. Now that we have spent a huge amount of money to go abroad, how can we return home empty-handed? So they scattered around Taiwan, looking for other work opportunities. It is illegal to engage in work that is inconsistent with the purpose of their entry visa.
Although the prohibition on changing jobs was later slightly relaxed, during the epidemic, many factories saw fewer orders and could barely maintain operations. They even required employees to take turns to take vacations, let alone hire new staff. Many foreign workers have passed the three-month period of waiting to change employers and still cannot find a new job. Since I had made up my mind not to leave the country, I left without saying goodbye and disappeared into the vast sea of people in Taiwan. On the other hand, the validity period of the residence permit for foreign workers is based on the date of employment of the first job. If I no longer have my original job and cannot find another factory to hire me, I will naturally not be able to stay in Taiwan. If you insist on staying, it will be deemed as overstaying, which is naturally illegal. Therefore, the so-called "illegal foreign workers" often make people mistakenly think that the workers have done illegal things such as killing, setting fires, and robbing banks. In fact, most of them just want to change to a suitable job, work more overtime, and save more money to send money to others. Just going back to my hometown.
Workers caught working illegally are deported and restricted from re-entering the country for several years. There is a widespread rumor among foreign workers that if they are caught once, they will never be able to return to Taiwan. If you still want to come, unless you marry a Taiwanese or fake a marriage and then enter the country as a dependent, you can only sneak across. There are two types of smuggling. One is to enter the country by plane with a fake passport. This method has become more difficult since Taiwan established a digital entry and exit information system. The other is to take a boat and go ashore in the dark, but no one knows the probability of success.
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