US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized the catch of a Taiwanese fishing vessel that was flying a “flag of convenience” and using forced labor, the agency said on Friday.
The CBP said in a statement that the Vanuatu-flagged vessel Da Wang (大旺) is owned and operated by the Taiwanese firm Yong Feng Fishery.
The company is one of two recently found by the CBP suspected of using forced labor. The other is a Malaysian company, Sime Darby Plantation Berhad (Sime Darby), whose palm oil and related merchandise was also seized.
“CBP’s investigations found evidence of all 11 of the International Labour Organization’s forced labor indicators on the Da Wang vessel and Sime Darby Plantation’s palm oil plantations,” the statement said.
“CBP determined that Sime Darby and [Yong Feng] use forced labor in their operations, and that both companies’ goods are being, or are likely to be, imported into the United States,” the CBP said.
The CBP in July 2020 issued a Withhold Release Order against seafood caught with what it said was reasonable suspicion of forced labor, physical violence, debt bondage, withholding of wages, and abusive living conditions on the Da Wang.
A Greenpeace Southeast Asia report titled Seabound: The Journey to Modern Slavery on the High Seas in May last year said that the Da Wang was involved in forced labor.
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) also said that a migrant worker on the Da Wang was a victim of a human trafficking scheme.
The Control Yuan in May called on the Cabinet and several government agencies, including the NIA, Ocean Affairs Council and the Fisheries Agency, to address human rights abuses on Taiwanese fishing vessels flying flags of convenience.
Flying such flags is a common practice in which merchant ship owners register their vessels in a country other than their own to reduce costs, avoid taxes and bypass legal requirements that protect the wages and working conditions of their crews.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods