Welcome, We'll Get Started

Digital Video Conferences – December 8, 2006, 7:30pm EST; 8:30am Taipei

Speakers: Ambassador John Miller, Director, Office for Monitoring and Combatting Trafficking in Persons; Mark Taylor, Senior Coordinator for Reports, Office for Monitoring and Combatting Trafficking in Persons and Sally Neumann, Reports Office

Program Overview: This 90-minute program will focus on major issues related to the 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report for Taiwan; to raise awareness and respect for Human Rights and to promote and strengthen cooperation against International Crime.

Transcript begins:

Nicholas Papp: Welcome, we'll get startednow.So I'd like to welcome everybodyhere at the AmericanCulturalCenter in our branch office inKaohsiung and those joining uslive via our internet webcast.During the video conference, Iwould ask if all of the studioswould mute their microphoneswhen they are not speaking,because we'll get a feedbackproblem.And I think in Kaohsiung, if themicrophone is not muted, goahead, thank you.I'd like to welcome everyone.We're very happy to bring youthis digital video conference ontrafficking in persons.My name is Nicholas Papp, andI'm the Director of the AmericanCulturalCenter here at AIT.Today, we have arranged anopportunity to discuss combatingtrafficking in persons and we arehonored to have Ambassador JohnMiller, Director, Office of Monitor and Combat Traffickingin Persons, U.S.Department of State.He's joined by Mr. Mark Taylor,senior coordinator in AmbassadorMiller's office.And Sally Neumann.All of us are joining us in ourWashington, DC studio.

Today, we have about 50 government officials, prosecutors, police,representatives from local NGOsand the media here in Taipei.And I'd like to take this momentto quickly introduce our Taipeipanelists.Chen Wen-chi, Deputy Director,Dept.of Prosecutorial Affairs, MOJ Sandy Yeh, President,Chairperson, Dept.and Graduate School of Foreign Affairs, Police CentralUniversity. James Huskey, Section Chief, AIT Political Section Dept. of Justice, in addition to our Taipeiaudience, we have anotheraudience in southern Taiwan.Now, we'll go down south andpass the program to AIT'seconomics and consular chief inKaohsiung Jean Pierre-Louis whowill make some welcome remarksand introduce the panelists inKaohsiung.

Jean Pierre-Louis: Thank you, Nick.My name is Jean Pierre Louis,the economic consular chief herein Kaohsiung.Maybe you might hear my betternow that the mic is off.We're glad to join this program.This is an important issue andwe in southern Taiwan take itvery seriously.We're happy to have an audiencehere that consists very much ofthe same people that are in Taipei.And I'll introduce ourpanelists quickly.And we have two of the threehere, one is running a littlelate.But when he arrives, he'll joinright in.Just to my left here, we haveFather Bruno Ciceri, Director,Stella Maris InternationalService Centerto his left, we have Yu Jo-fan, Prosecutor, Kaohsiungprosecutors officeand the third gentlemen justjoined us and that's Chief,Mark Chih, Chief, ForeignAffairs Section, Kaohsiungcounty police department.And he will be asking hisquestions in Chinese. The other two panelists will dothat in English.

Nicholas Papp: Great. Okay, thank you,.So quickly or format today, wewill have a 90-minute videoconference in our Washingtonspeakers will begin discussingtrafficking in persons, ingeneral, as well as the 2006trafficking in persons reportfor Taiwan.And then, our panelists inTaipei will ask questions of thespeaker, then we'll go down toKaohsiung and get questions fromthe panelists in Kaohsiung andmove back and forth between thestudio audiences and takequestions from the audience.If you're going to ask yourquestion in Taipei, if you askyour question in Chinese, pleaselet us know because we haveseparate microphones for theChinese question.Okay, so with that, we'll moveover -- actually, I understandAmbassador Miller will beleaving.He has another engagement andhe'll leave after about an hourso if he leaves early, you canexpect that because he hasanother appointment.So at this time we'll move toWashington, DC and welcome ourpanelists.Thank you very much for comingin this evening, staying alittle late, and with that,we'll move it around the worldto Washington, DC.

Ambassdor Miller: Director Papp, thank you forthe introductions, and I want tothank the Center for bringingsuch a distinguished casttogether this morning your time,this evening our time.And I'm Ambassador John Miller.I'm representative Ambassador atLarge for the President on theissue of modern-day slavery.I also chair an interagencygroup of the United StatesGovernment that tries tocoordinate our policies, at homeand abroad on this issue.Sitting to my right is MarkTaylor, a reports coordinatorwho has visited Taiwan, and anumber of occasions, and sittingto my left, Sally Newman also ofthe report staff.Sally also has been to Taiwan.We very much appreciate your allcoming together.This issue of modern-dayslavery, is emerging as one ofthe premier human rights issuesof the 21st century.It is also a public healthissue, also a national securityissue.Perhaps we in the United Statesare particularly sensitive aboutthis issue, because of ourhistory with slavery in centuries past.But today we have what we callmodern-day slavery.Sometimes it involves sexslavery, sometimes factory orfarm labor slavery, sometimesservitude slavery, some regionsof the world, child soldierslavery.But it literally affectsmillions of people.Taiwan and the United Stateshave a special obligation towork together and try to combatthis issue.I travel around the world.I visited scores and scores ofcountries, and i must say, I donot believe there is a singlecountry in the world, that does not have modern-day slavery.

And I include the United Statesand Taiwan.We all have this challenge. Itmay differ in our countries.The kinds of slavery or theamounts, but we all have it.We're not just democraciesconfronting this issue but we'reboth destination countries.When I say destinationcountries, if you look atmodern-day slavery, sometimes itexists internally within acountry, sometimes a countrysends people abroad to othercountries, so there are sourcecountries, there are transitcountries, but the wealthiercountries of the world, theso-called developed world,whether it be in Europe, orAsia, or the western hemisphere,we're destination countries,meaning, we're destination forthose who are trafficked, thosehuman beings who lose theirfreedom, and through deceptionor fraud or coercion or beatingsor threats, end up in slavery.So tonight, we look forward todiscussing with you and askingyou questions and having you askus questions about this subject.What is going on in Taiwan,what's going on in the UnitedStates on this issue, what's going on around theworld.We put out a report every year,our Secretary of State, thatlooks at slavery around theworld, and Taiwan is included.

Those of you who have read thereport know that we downgradedTaiwan last year.We also put out an assessment ofthe United States that ourjustice department puts out.The important thing is not aparticular report, that's a meertool.The important thing is that allof news the United States andTaiwan, and elsewhere, do whatwe can to free the victims ofslavery, and to throw thetraffickers in jail.And with that as anintroduction, let's throw itback to Taiwan, and let'sproceed with our dialog andour questions.I understand that you have --that was distributed to you astory of Du Yen, she is a victim of slaverystarting with a forced marriagein Taiwan.But her story is symbolic inrepresentative of thousands ofthose in the United States or inTaiwan, or many countries of theworld who have faced thisplight.And I think as I discussedtonight, laws and lawenforcement and victimprotection and prevention andreports, we should keep in mind,we should keep in mind in theend we're concerned with youngwomen like Du.So with that, let's go back toTaiwan.

Nicholas Papp: Okay, well, thank you verymuch, Ambassador Miller.With that, I think that we'llmove to our panelists, and Ithink maybe we'll start firstwith Sandy Yeh.Would you like to open withcomment or questions for ourspeakers in Washington?

Sandy Yeh: Good evening AmbassadorMiller, and Mark and Sally.And all of the panelists.Thank you for hosting thisconference.Actually, after the release ofthe report this year, when youdowngraded Taiwan to the watchlist, the government has takensome serious action toward theimprovement of the humantrafficking efforts.For example, two weeks ago,maybe three weeks ago, thePremier of Taiwan announced thelong national plan, NationalAction Plan.But professor of central policeuniversity, and as a worker ofan NGO, I still consider it along way to go until we canmake all of the plans.We got it in the national actionplan to take place.

For example, recently, we haveseveral very serious cases thathappened in Taipei area.Last month, the NGO helped theprosecutor in the county and thepolice officer there, toinvestigate human traffickingcases.Many women trafficked fromIndonesia were rescued.One victim, having been inTaiwan for over three months andshe has been a prostitute, avery popular prostitute, but,when the prosecutor took herinto custody, she was veryserious AIDS patient. Right now, we took her in theshelter, and had her, you know,medical care.But we are having a very seriousproblem because, the Indonesiangovernment will not take herback.We're trying to negotiatethrough NGOs and thegovernment, and trying to sendher back because that's herwish.I don't know what we can do,because you all understand thedifficulties of the Taiwangovernment in terms of diplomatic relationship withforeign countries.Perhaps if the U.S. Governmentis doing the global evaluation,probably you can help us to, youknow, do some of thecoordination to help thosevictims to be able to go home.Thank you.

Ambassador Miller: Those were very interestingcomments, and it sounds like theadoption of the national actionplan was a positive step. Ofcourse, the key everywhere isnot adopting a plan, it isimplementing a plan as thespeaker recognized.You mentioned the victim fromIndonesia, we were just inIndonesia several weeks ago, andof course, Indonesia is a sourcecountry, literally thousands,perhaps hundreds of thousands ofIndonesians have traveled toSaudi Arabia, Malaysia, you haveindicated Taiwan.And many of them, while goingwith the hope of gettinglegitimate work, many of themfinding legitimate work, but, agood number have fallen intoslavery.And we would be happy to followup on the particular case thatyou're talking about, because wehave had extensive dialogs,with the Indonesian governmenton this issue as to what can bedone in both sourceand destination countries.

Nicholas Papp: Ambassador Miller, we had afew advanced questions that hadcome in and while you mentionedthe national action plan here inTaiwan, one of the questions wasrelated to that.i'll just share that with you now. does the State Department, youroffice in AIT, have any plans orsuggestions for investigatingthe impact of this new national 9 action plan to protecttrafficking in victims andimprove the services that theyreceive?

> How does your office, maybeJim can help with this too.How do you evaluate a plan andwhat should we be looking for?

Ambassador Miller: Well, I'm going to turn thisover to Mark Taylor. I'll start off withpreliminary comments. We're looking primarily atefforts that any government makeswith regards to, what we callthe three Ps, prosecution,protection, and prevention.The key to our evaluation is notso much the size of the problem,as the efforts that are made tocombat it.Mark is going to make somecomments, but I'll just add onemore thing.I earlier said that I believemodern-day slavery exists inevery country.I also believe that everycountry in the world includingthe United States of America,including Taiwan, every countryin the world can do more in theway of efforts on this issue.We are dealing with an age-oldchallenge, but in a sense, it isa new challenge because themodern-day slavery is differentthan in some ways than theslavery of the past.Much of it is criminal, and muchof it relates to globalization.And so, we're having to come upwith new efforts and newtechniques.But let me turn it to Mr. --over to Mr. Taylor to give morespecifics and evaluation of theplan and what Taiwan is doing.

Mark Taylor: Thank you, Ambassador.Good to see you again.For us, I think it is fair tosay that as Ambassador Millerhas indicated, the plan ofaction is measured by itsimplement ion, and we is some ofthe key values of such plan tobe its ability to coordinate thevarious agencies and ministriesthat have a stake in fightingtrafficking, and that's firstand foremost, the number onebenefit.But through that coordination tobring NGOs into the process torecognize the value that theyhave, in providing protectionfor victims to identify victims.Of course, you can't protectvictims unless they are properlyidentified and developing theprotocols for identifyingvictims, using the rightindicators and questions, whenyou're screening at-riskpopulations such as womenarrested for vice activities, orworkers who are arrested forbeing out of status, not havehaving the right immigrationdocuments.And part of that is also toexempt victims who areidentified from being punished.And I think that is an issue, inTaiwan, it is certainly has beenin the past.I think things are quite a bitimprovement in the last twoyears.And that's what we're lookingfor to see those kind ofpayoffs, accomplished throughthe implementation of a plan.

Nicholas Papp: Jim, would you like to addsomething?

Jim Huskey: Please.I may explain to you that,the way the tip process works,is that the political section atAIT in Taipei, drafts, workswith you and with NGOs and government officials to draft abasic report that we send toWashington and work with thetrafficking in persons office,with Mark Taylor and AmbassadorMiller to finalize a draft ofthe annual trafficking inpersons report for Taiwan.We said last year, basicallythat Taiwan, our conclusion wasthat Taiwan is makingsignificant efforts to deal withits trafficking in personsproblem.But we did not see evidence ofincreasing efforts which is partof the process to increase theanti-trafficking efforts of eachgovernment.What we're looking at this year, what particularly interested inis government efforts workingwith NGOs, government effortsto provide anti-traffickinglegislation, and in this casewith Taiwan we are have twotracks.We have the efforts towardanti-trafficking legislation, inthe legislative U.N., andthen, the national action planthat premier introduced November 8. The problem, of course, inTaiwan, Mark and AmbassadorMiller is that Taiwan is ademocracy, it is a very, veryactive democracy and at thispoint, legislation is a littledifficult to get through.The legislative UN efforts bya number of legislators to pushthrough some very positivelegislation dealing with thetrafficking issue have -- are atthis point gridlocked as I seeit.The national action plan is veryimportant and that's what we inTaipei at AIT will be focusing on for the next few monthsworking with you, withgovernment officials, mycolleagues here and NGOs toasses how this implementationis going and what we, the United States can do to help to workwith you, to on training andimplementation.We're very much partners in thisfight against internationaltrafficking.

Nicholas Papp: thank you, Jim. Any follow-up comments fromWashington?We have a lot of prosecutorshere too.And one of the questions thathas come in advance was, whatissues should prosecutors inTaiwan be focusing on?

Mark Taylor: I think there are a number ofbest practices that we've beenable to identify around theworld.In the last six years that theU.S. government has had thiseffort internationally.And one of them, one that isuniversal is when resources arededicated, law enforcementresources are dedicated tocombating trafficking, both ina prosecutorial office and in aninvestigative office, thepolice, and that kind ofspecialization that is built up,and hopefully benefits from training,certainly benefits fromexperience investigating thecases and taking them to courtleads to a higher profile of theproblem.It comes to the floor, gets moreattention, and more traffickersface justice and victims arefreed.

Nicholas Papp: Mark, I remember when youwere here well a couple ofmonths ago now when we spoke,you were mentioning that labortrafficking here in Taiwan ismaybe the biggest issue.Is that right?

Mark Taylor: It is hard to say. I know that there is a questionabout statistics on themagnitude of the problem inTaiwan.And I think that every, everylocation around the world hasthe same problem in quantifyingthe trafficking problems.Ambassador Miller is fond ofsaying trafficking victims don'tline up to be counted.And this is a hidden activity,and it is very hard to quantify.So making the judgement of whetherlabor is larger than traffickingfor sexual exploitation istherefore difficult.But it certainly is large, Ithink, and that's somethingthere is great people, some inthe audience working to try tounderstand the problem better,trying to come up withsolutions.I think labor forms oftrafficking are more difficultto identify.And more difficult to resolvebecause there are differentelements involved, includingrecruitment fees, includingconditions of contract, a lot oftimes this happens in a legalformat, sometimes it does happenin an irregular or illegalformat but it is not found inobvious locations that can bemonitored and investigated asyou might find in the commercialsex trade where trafficking forsexual exploitation occurs.

Nicholas Papp: thank you.And with that we'll go toprosecutor.

Prosecutor Ko: Good morning, ladies andgentlemen. Hi to Ambassador Miller and Mark Taylor. I am happy to see Mark Taylor again. Two years ago, he visited MOJ and I just met himand AIT wanted me to give somesubjects forMark Taylor whichplace he could visit in Taiwanto see the problem oftrafficking in person, so it ismy first time to see MarkTaylor.I think it was mentioned aboutthe issue the prosecutor needsto pay more attention is thetrafficking in persons.I think that the first mostquestion and the most difficultproblem is how to identify thevictim.As you know, some victims, notall, but some victims alsoagainst some local law, such forthe immigration law, or thenation security law, or others.But, I know, we know that somevictims before -- and even againsome of the administrativepunishment.It must be considered if he'spunished or not.So I’m the one to involve theaction plan. During the pasteight months, we discussed somany times.

The government in Taiwan paymuch attention about this issue.That's why, I can say thattoday, the Vice Minister of(inaudible) he comes here inperson, so we pay more attentionabout this.And you just mentioned about thelabor, the labor question.I think it is a new one becausewe talked about with mycolleague, other prosecutors. Maybe they have not so manyawareness about this question.So I think that we need to getthem some chance and give them a clear identification abouttrafficking in persons. Maybe in the old day may be only slavery. Maybe modern slavery may be changed.The virgin marriage or the other kindof crimes.And then,I want you to saythat, Professor Ye says still a long timefor our government, even when we have this kind of plan. But I think it is very important that we are gaining because for the last eight months, we discussed many times. We need tonegotiate with not only for theseveral parliaments but also the NGOs because the issue about, because the issue NGO want to solve -- maybeit is still hard for us, so weneed to talk and discuss. I am happy to be here to say that I think Taiwan has to pay more attention to this question. So I thinkmaybe in the 2007 report, we canbe better. Thank you.