Drying Workers' Tears with Hope

Peter O'Neill SSC
This story was written in April 2002.
Two years later in June 2004 Fr O'Neill continues the tragic story of Siti Aniyah - An Arduous Path to Justice. It is an example of the suffering of so many migrant workers around the world.

The story of Siti Anoyah continues...
An Arduous Path to Justice

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Drying Workers' Tears with Hope

“My employer took the hot pan from the stove and placed it on my right forearm. The pain went all through my body.”

Tears streamed down the face of Siti Aniyah Tugiman as she showed me her scarred forearm. Her horrific story of physical and mental torture at the hands of her Taiwanese employer left me numb. How could any human being inflict such intolerable pain on another?

Sadly, such stories in Taiwan are not uncommon. The Hope Workers’ Centre (HWC), founded by Columban missionaries in 1986, works to protect migrant workers in Taiwan. In 2000 alone, the HWC handled 1,161 cases of abuse involving 7,227 migrant workers. This number is just the tip of the iceberg. The HWC is one of eight Catholic Centres in Taiwan assisting migrant workers. There are also more than 10 government migrant workers’ counselling Centres.

Siti Aniyah Tugiman provides a face to these grim statistics. She is a married 26 years old Indonesian woman with a two-year-old son. Like millions of other Indonesians, her family struggles daily to provide the necessities for survival. Her family owns no land. Her husband’s employment as a farmer earns only enough to provide the family with just one meal a day.

Siti Aniyah had heard a lot of money could be earned in Taiwan and she wanted to make enough so her family could build a house. To help her family rise above poverty, she decided to go to Taiwan to work as a domestic helper for three years. She was afraid to go to Saudi Arabia where thousands of Indonesian women work as domestic helpers. One of her neighbours went there and was treated badly. She hadn’t heard anything bad about Taiwan.

Coming to Taiwan to work means hiring a broker. Siti Aniyah paid about AUD$1450 to her Indonesian broker with a high interest loan from a lending agency.

She was heartbroken to leave her son, then six months old, in the loving care of her mother while she travelled to Jakarta to live with more than 100 other Indonesian women in the broker’s cramped dormitory.

Six months later, she was still locked inside the dormitory. Would she ever get to Taiwan? She longed to see her son, but was forbidden to leave the dormitory. Finally, she was sent by plane to Taipei.

Her Taiwanese broker met Siti Aniyah at the airport and drove her to her employer’s house in Taipei. For a full year, this greedy broker bled AUD$7,160 in fees from her. In total, Siti Aniyah paid AUD$8,610 to land a job in Taiwan even though the legal broker’s fee agreed upon by the Indonesian and Taiwanese governments is AUD$3,800.

Siti Aniyah received the monthly minimum salary of AUD$911, minus taxes and health insurance. She worked on her day off so she could afford to send money to her family. By working every day of the year, she was able to send home AUD$117 a month.

At first Siti Aniyah’s employer was kind and she was happy to be in Taiwan. Being a Muslim, she prayed each night to Allah to protect’ her during her three years in Taiwan and help her earn money for her family.

“I didn’t want my employer to know I was praying,” she said. “I would pray in my room late at night before I went to bed.” Brokers tell Indonesian workers that Taiwanese employers will not look favourably on praying five times a day, which is the Islamic practice.

Soon Siti Aniyah was treated like a slave. Her work began at 5:00am each morning and ended at midnight. She took care of her employer’s three-year-old twins, both of whom have polio. She also cleaned the house, prepared meals and washed clothes.

After three months, the wife in the family started to hit Siti Aniyah continually with an umbrella. She would hit her on the back, the tops of her fingers and her arms and legs. She also would beat her feet with the blunt edge of a large chopping knife. Siti Aniyah still has no feeling on the top of her feet:

In uncontrollable fits of rage, the woman would pull Siti Aniyah’s hair and bang her head repeatedly against the wall. When I examined Siti Aniyah’s head, I could see where her hair had been pulled out. The wife would also kick her in the abdomen and pelvic area. On one occasion, Siti Aniyah was beaten so badly she began to bleed. With no strength left to withstand the torture, she collapsed into unconsciousness.

When she woke up in her own blood, the wife scolded her, telling her to clean it up so her husband wouldn’t see it. Siti Aniyah feared the woman would beat her to death. The woman said if she ran away, the police would catch her, and she would never see her son again. She was living in hell with nowhere to run.

The worst act of brutality was yet to come. When the woman went to throw a bowl of water on her face, Siti Aniyah instinctively put her arm up to protect herself. She accidentally knocked the bowl from the woman’s hand. In sheer anger, the woman poked her sharply in the eye with her finger.

After nine months of abuse, Siti Aniyah’s nightmare ended when the woman’s husband noticed her red and sore eye. He took her to see a doctor, who said her damaged eye needed surgery. Despite the operation, she will never see clearly from her right eye. While in the hospital, a Taiwanese patient in her ward came to her rescue. This kind old lady arranged for an Indonesian caretaker who was caring for an elderly patient in the hospital to visit Siti Aniyah.

The caretaker was shocked to see the signs of physical abuse. With some gentle persuasion, Siti Aniyah agreed to call the Taiwan government for assistance. A representative from the bureau of labour came immediately to the hospital and contacted the HWC. She arranged for her to be transferred to our shelter after her hospital stay.

Mary Ye, the HWC’s Indonesian social worker and Santos Lin, one of two Taiwanese social workers at the Centre, are assisting Siti Aniyah with her case. At their first meeting with the government, the employer and the broker, Mary scolded the Indonesian-Chinese broker for not rescuing Siti Aniyah from her workplace. The broker’s excuse was, “Whenever 1 called the employer, the employer said everything was fine.” Siti Aniyah had given a good part of her salary to her broker and he did nothing to assist her.

After several meetings, the woman continued to deny physically abusing Siti Aniyah, saying that she had fallen down repeatedly. Her husband supported her story. Mary Ye has taken Siti Aniyah six times to see a doctor, who has stated that Siti Aniyah’s injuries are the result of physical abuse.

Siti Aniyah also has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. If she does not receive appropriate compensation from her employer, her only avenue for justice will be to sue her employer, meaning one to two years in legal proceedings.

Forty migrant workers (23 women and 17 men) from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam live at our HWC shelter. Their abuses include rape, sexual and physical harassment, forced illegal work, and illegal repatriation by employers. The workers stay at the shelter while the Centre’s seven social workers and two missionaries pursue their cases with the government, employers and brokers.

For many years our organisation has lobbied the Taiwanese government to set up its own shelter. We have asked for government funds to run the shelter, but they are not forthcoming. It costs the Centre a minimum of AUD$3,000 a month to run the shelter.

According to 2001 government statistics, there are 330,000 migrant workers in Taiwan: 142,000 Thais, 93,000 Filipinos, 85,000 Indonesians, and 10,000 Vietnamese. Despite the broker’s legal fee being set at AUD$5,000 for foreign workers (except Indonesians domestic helpers and caretakers) they pay a minimum broker’s fee of AUD$8,610 to work in Taiwan. Factory and construction workers pay between AUD$8,610 to AUD$12,680. In 1998, the broker’s fee was in fact AUD$5,200 but on average, has doubled1 since then, although the migrant workers’ salary has not increased one cent since October 1998.

The Taiwanese government has done little to eradicate this corrupt broker system. Despite these crippling fees, in September 2001 the government introduced a policy that allows an employer of factory and construction based migrant workers to withhold 25% of a worker’s salary for food and shelter. Previously workers were protected by contracts that required them to receive free food and shelter. The HWC campaigned with the migrant workers and their chaplains, together with local labour unions, to oppose this unjust policy.

This policy has made the migrant workers even cheaper labour, further hurting the local labour market. With the economic crisis in Taiwan, unemployment is at an all-time high.

One of the government’s political platforms was to decrease the number of migrant workers by 15,000 per year to provide better opportunities for local employment. But statistics show that the number of migrant workers has increased by 30,000 during the last year

The HWC, under the direction of a Columban missionary continues to assist people like Siti Aniyah. Since its founding, the Centre has been engaged in lobbying, campaigning, education, organising, legal assistance, counselling, case management and networking. The Centre’s headquarters are in a Catholic church, and its director is a chaplain to almost 10,000 Filipino workers who frequent the church each month. About 3,000 Filipinos attend the three English Masses each Sunday. About 200 Filipinos are active in various apostolates of the community.

Many Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese workers also find a home at the Centre. Since most of these workers are Muslim and Buddhist, it takes some time before they feel comfortable in a Catholic church.

But once they do, they realise it is a welcoming refuge where they are listened to and helped with compassion as they become empowered to stand up for their rights. They spread the news that they have found hope in the HWC.

Siti Aniyah’s courage to fight for life and demand her just compensation has inspired me to continue helping migrant workers caught in a cruel system that supports the rich against the poor.