Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior has welcomed a report by the US State Department placing Taiwan in the top tier of countries fighting human trafficking. The 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report came out on Thursday.
For the twelfth year in a row, Taiwan is ranked among countries with the best records at combating human trafficking. The 28 countries listed in Tier 1 include the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands.
Taiwan’s interior ministry says the report reflects the government’s close cooperation with civic groups during the pandemic. It says the government has actively promoted measures to prevent human trafficking. The ministry says Taiwan is working to address the issue of forced labor among foreign fishing workers on Taiwanese ships.
The US report makes several recommendations to help prevent human trafficking. One calls for Taiwan to “[i]ncrease inspections and... prosecute the senior crew and owners of… fishing vessels suspected of forced labor in the [Distant Water Fleet]”. The report also says Taiwan should “[i]mplement port entry restrictions for… fishing vessels whose operators have a trafficking criminal record”.
The interior ministry says it will take the report’s recommendations into consideration in future reports to Taiwan’s Cabinet. The ministry says that Taiwanese authorities have already made many of the recommendations in recent reports to the government.