Residency call made for foreign domestic abuse victims

Spokesman for the group “The Alliance for Amending the Law to Protect Immigrants Human Rights” Hsiao Hsiao-chuan said according to the law foreign widows of Taiwanese men are permitted to apply for permanent residence. It does not matter if these widows have children or not.

However, she said, police working for town and county governments across the island often didn’t observe the law and forced foreign widows to return to their home countries, sometimes separating them from their own children.

“In practice, the foreign affairs departments of police stations in each region often have their own administrative considerations,” Hsiao said at a press conference.

Marriages between Taiwanese farmers or Taiwanese blue collar workers and southeast Asian women are becoming increasingly common, especially in the island’s south.

But immigrants and women’s rights groups say these foreign women are increasingly vulnerable to exploitation as they do not have the same rights as Taiwanese citizens.

Hsiao said families often did not want their foreign daughters-in-law to stay in Taiwan as they wanted to keep the husband’s inheritance and feared the foreign wife would try to make her own claim.

Hsiao claimed families in regional areas often had good connections with local governments and used their influence to pressure the police not to process their foreign daughter-in-law’s permanent residency application.

“Before my husband fell sick and died, my ... in laws were very good to me,” said a southeast Asian woman wearing a yellow hat and mask who would only give her name as Fan.

“After my husband ...died, everything changed and I could not process my permanent residency permit,” she said at the news conference.

Hsiao said application procedures were also complicated and laws had many gray areas, giving regional police more scope for refusing residency applications from foreign spouses.

She called on the National Police Administration (NPA)to ensure the law was enforced at a regional level. She also said the NPA needed to make the laws and procedures very clear so that local governments had no reason to refuse applications.

The alliance is also calling on the legislature to amend immigration laws so that foreign domestic violence victims and women who are forced to divorce because of their husband’s behavior to be granted permanent residence.

A statement from the group said the threat of deportment often forced foreign wives to put up with abuse or violence from their Taiwanese spouse. Taiwanese men could feel they had more power over foreign wives if they knew their wives were too afraid to seek a divorce.

TransAsia Sisters Association Taiwan secretary general Shawn Wu said a draft of the amended immigration law supported by the alliance had regulations resembling the U-visa system in the U.S.

The U-visa system allows abused immigrant women to seek help and prosecute their abusers without fear of deportation. Under the system, women can seek a three-year visa and after this apply for permanent residence in the U.S.

Another foreign widow, a Vietnamese woman who gave her name as Le said she had the support of her in laws and wanted to stay in Taiwan to care for her three children.

But the family found permanent residency procedures very complicated and employed a broker. The broker at NT$26,000 over-charged them at least NT$12,000 more than was needed. The family has been waiting a year and the application still has not been approved.

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