Immigration Prison

Razor Wire Surrounding the Prison

At the International Detention Center, the women came down the steps as usual, sat on their stools waiting for the program to begin.  The Christians who had come to teach and sing with the detainees waited and waited but the men did not show up.  We were told that some of the men had been involved in a fight, so the administrators punished them all.  Thus, none of the men were allowed to come to the meeting.
This past week we spoke to 3 Thai women and a Cambodian woman.  The Cambodian was brought to Taiwan as a 3 year old.  Her mother failed to fill out the proper forms for her to have Taiwanese citizenship.  So as she turned 18, she was arrested because she lacked a valid ID or papers proving her nationality.  Soon she will have to return to Cambodia.  What a sad turn of events for someone, who grew up in Taiwan speaking Mandarin, cannot really speak Cambodian and is being forced to go to a place she does not know.  Another woman, who is about 30, was married to a Taiwanese man for 10 years. But because she could not have any children by him, he divorced her.  She had opened a shop and was able to support herself, but was arrested because her husband had never registered her with the Taiwanese authorities.  Most of the women have a high school or less education, an ignorance of Taiwanese law, and trusted their husbands or mothers to register them properly with the local authorities. As you can see, this tragically does not always happen.