A couple of days ago, Stella Maris Kaohsiung visited several fishing ports and migrant fishers’ communities in Penghu, Taiwan. They brought them goods such as instant noodles and toiletries, listened to their sharing, and provided them with education about grievance mechanisms and their rights as migrant workers.
They appreciate that at the fishing ports like Fengkuei and Suogang, the local authorities provide shower rooms and toilets for the fishers. However, at some big ports where they visited like Waian and Neian, fishers have been waiting for that for years, and needless to say, at those small and remote fishing ports on Penghu islands, there are not even appropriate facilities at all.
They visited the Baitul Muslimin Mosque (Masjid Baitul Muslimin, PCINU Ranting Penghu), and met an old friend and his fellows there. This moment reminds them of when they visited fishers’ “floating mosque”(a prayer room inside a fishing vessel) for the first time before pandemic time. It’s phenomenal to see that migrant fishers finally build and own a space for prayers on their own.
They also visited OPIB, the regional organization established 10 years ago by migrant workers from Pemalang Regency, Central Java. OPIB’s members shared about their mission and vision, how this organization helps its members who experience difficulties such as work contracts being terminated without fishers’ agreement, being abused mentally and physically by the employers, being intimidated to be deported by brokers, being starving and need to beg for food from the other fishers because their employers and brokers don’t want to take responsibility.
They identify that most of the fishers they met have only 1 or 2 days off a year, basically 1 day during Lunar New Year holidays, and some lucky ones can get another day off on Al-Fitr. The problem of “unpaid leave” is also easy to be recognized. At one of the fishing ports they visited, 13 from 18 fishers in total at this port were asked to take 3 months of unpaid leave, because the employers are not capable of paying the wages during the off season of fishing. Fishers who have worked less than 2.5 years have to pay all the travel charges by themselves (employers will pay half of the travel charges for their employees who have worked for more than 2.5 years). However, fishers’ brokers asked to pay 30,000NTD for the flight tickets to/from Indonesia, which is much higher than normal price. Migrant fishers only have 12 years to work in Taiwan, except for those who are applied to become the intermediate-skilled workers, however, this “unpaid leave” system will deplete migrant fishers’ number of work years. Stella Maris Kaohsiung hopes government officials have to think about it seriously because the phenomenon not only shows employers’ and brokers’ irresponsibility, but it also harms the rights of migrant fishers.
