Sexual Abuse of Live-In Care Workers in Taiwan

Since 1993 Taiwan has become an ageing society. The growing number of old people increases the demands of long-term care. However, this trend has been ignored by the government. With little support from the government and decline of family size, middle-class families are likely to depend on paid employment for caring the family elderly. Every year thousands of migrant women from Southeast Asia enter Taiwan to work in private households as care workers providing care for the frail elderly or persons with severe disabilities.


Introduction
Since 1993 Taiwan has become an ageing society.The growing number of old people increases the demands of long-term care.However, this trend has been ignored by the government.With little support from the government and decline of family size, middle-class families are likely to depend on paid employment for caring the family elderly.Every year thousands of migrant women from Southeast Asia enter Taiwan to work in private households as care workers providing care for the frail elderly or persons with severe disabilities.
Due to the lack of workplace protection and the live-in close relationship between employee and employer, these migrant women workers are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse in the workplace.However, the problem of abuse of live-in care workers have been largely ignored by Taiwanese feminist scholars of domestic violence and scholars of migration studies.This ignorance is also manifested in the policy of the government.Even though some studies of migration in Taiwan have recently revealed the disadvantages faced by livein care workers in their employment (Lin, 1999;Lan, 2000Lan, & 2006;;Cheng, 2004;Loveband, 2004;Liang, 2011), few investigate the problem of sexual violence against migrant women workers in private households (Pan and Yang, 2012).
Accordingly, by analyzing the internal dynamics of Taiwanese households employing female migrant workers, this chapter aims to explore a topic ignored by the research on global migration and domestic violence.Drawing data from interviews and documents, this chapter illustrates how the cultural norms and family ideologies behind the foreign labor system reinforce the exploitation and abusive relationship.This chapter is divided into four sections following this introduction.First, this chapter analyzes the changes of population and family structure in Taiwan.Second, this chapter presents policies and regulations regarding live-in care workers.Third, this chapter illustrates the cases of live-in care workers who are sexually abused.Finally, this chapter investigates the internal dynamics of Taiwanese household employing live-in care workers.

Changes of population and family structure 2.1 Changes of population
The population structure of Taiwan has transformed over the past fifteen years.In 2010, the total population was approximately 23 millions.Persons aged over 65 constitute 10.7% of www.intechopen.comSexual Abuse -Breaking the Silence 224 the total population (Council for Economic Planning and Development, 2008).This number is expected to increase up to 20% in 2025 and 38% in 2056 respectively (see Figure 1).The growing number of old people implies an increasing demand for care for the elderly.In 2009, the number of old people who need long-term care was 362,584 which constituted 1.55% of the total population.551) are the frail elderly and one-third (117,033) are persons with severe disabilities.Most of the elderly live in the community and are cared by female family members (e.g., wife, daughter-in-law, and daughter), while about 15% are cared by live-in care workers at private homes (Ministry of Health, 2009).

Decline of family size
Over the past fifteen years, the family structure of Taiwan has been shaped by a number of social forces.Firstly, a growing number of women received a high education.Women and men are almost equal in college and university education.This change has led to Taiwanese women's increasing involvement in labor force participation.In 2009, the women's labor force participation rate was 49.62% that improved 3.59% compared to 1999.The increase of women in labor force participation reduces the availability of women in providing unpaid care and domestic work.
Secondly, the decline of birth rate and family size are predicted to result in the shortage of younger people available to care for the elderly.In 2009, the birth rate of Taiwan was1.03 ‰ that decreased from 1.68 ‰ in 2000(Ministry of the Interior, 2010).This implies that each family has less available manpower to care for the family elderly.Although the government has recently provided incentives to encourage young families to give birth of next generations, the birth rate continues to decline.This trend puts care for the elderly in urgency.
Thirdly, the family structure of Taiwan has also been shaped by the trends of modernization and urbanization.Currently, a growing proportion of the younger generation prefers to live without their parents in urban areas.In Taiwanese culture, however, filial piety is the fundamental principle governing family relations and this principle implies that the next generation, particularly sons, must take responsibility for caring the family elderly.Those who fail to care for their parents face severe criticism (Cheng, 2003;Lan, 2000;Pan and Yang, 2008).
Together, these factors make the elderly become a major concern for Taiwanese families.With little support from the government, however, Taiwan middle-class families are likely to depend on paid employment for providing care for the family elderly.In her studies on live-in care workers, Lan (2003b) names the trend of employing migrant women workers for providing care for the family elderly as 'outsourcing of filial piety' which in turn brings a significant influence on the family dynamics of Taiwanese household in everyday relation.

Policies and regulations regarding migrant live-in worker
The increasing number of migrant care worker in Taiwan has demonstrated how population changes affect the internal dynamics of family everyday life.In Taiwan, the term of "migrant care workers" usually refers to women from Southeast Asia providing care for the frail elderly or people with severe disabilities either in institutions or in private households.Currently, there are 190,000 live-in care workers from Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines, constituting about 1% of the total population of Taiwan and representing 48 % of all migrant workers in Taiwan (see Figure 2).In 1989, Taiwan opened its gate to migrant workers.In 1992, foreign women can legally enter Taiwan as domestic workers and caregivers for the chronically ill, the elderly and the very young.Family could apply for live-in care workers based on the scores of the Activities of Daily Living (ADL) since then.Each year thousands of females from Southeast Asia enter Taiwan to work as care and domestic workers.Most migrant women workers work long hours up to 14-18 hours daily, without regular days off, for minimum wage (NT$ 17,942, approximately US$ 600).Migrant live-in workers are rarely allowed outside and are often prohibited from speaking with neighbors and outsiders.Even worse, this live-in working situation sometimes becomes a situation of abuse at the hands of their employers (Pan and Yang 2011).
Migrant women workers come to Taiwan to materially improve the lives of their families.However, to work in Taiwan these migrant women workers must ask the bank for a high interest loan.Repaying this money can cost over two-thirds of their salaries during their first year of work, and leave very little money to support their families.Most live-in care workers therefore hope to stay in the same household throughout their three-year working contract without being transferred to another employer.Immigration policy and labor law originally limited female migrant workers in Taiwan to a stay of just three years and this stay was extended to six years in 2007.This stay was extended to nine years in late 2008, and the requirement that they must work for the same employer throughout this period was removed.
According to Taiwan labor law, all migrant workers must be paid at least with the minimum wage.It is not uncommon to hear reports of live-in care workers being paid less than the minimum wage.Many live-in care workers find themselves working nearly around the clock, seven days a week.Some live-in workers are subjected to physical battery and sexual assault, but rarely reported to the police office because of the language barrier and their isolated living and working conditions.In the absence of hard evidence, accusations of sexual assault by their employers are more likely to lead to deportation than the redressing of their grievances.

Sexual violence against migrant women workers
Since the early 1970s, sexual violence against women has become a central topic for women's liberation movement.Many researches, interventions and strategies have emerged to deal with many forms of sexual violence.However, only few researches have investigated this issue based on the perspective of the victim or in relation to migrant women workers.
Over the past ten years, there has been an extensive literature on the topic of global migration, particularly on the political economy of maid trade (Gibson, Law and McKay, 2001;Cheng, 2003;Lyons, 2007).Some feminist researches focused on the links between intrahousehold dynamics and migration (Chang, 2000;Yeoh andHuang, 1998 &2000;Lan, 2003a).Others explored the situation faced by migrant women workers (Abu-Habib, 1998;Huang and Yeoh, 2003;Loveband, 2004;Mantouvalou, 2006).But only few researches examined sexual violence against female migrant workers in their employments (Huang and Yeoh, 2007).Indeed, the empirical research on sexual abuse against female migrant workers is scant (Bach, 2003).Many studies only mention such sexual abuse but usually do not further analyze it.Even on those rare occasions when analysis is conducted, it tends to focus on general working conditions.
Recently, discussion on sexual abuse against migrant women workers has been from ILO (2003) andHuman Rights Watch (2005).According to Human Rights Watch (2005), sexual abuse is likely to be underreported owing to the isolation of live-in care workers in the workplace and the deep social stigma attached to sexual assault.Huang and Yeoh (2007) investigated maid abuse in Singapore by using data from court transcripts and press reports and noted that most cases of physical abuse are perpetrated by women while most cases of sexual abuse are perpetrated by men.
Aihwa Ong (1991) argued that violence against live-in domestic workers in Asian families cannot ignore how the family and cultural norms shape family dynamics and relations in everyday life.In Taiwan, gender orders are deeply rooted in the traditional culture which is characterized by patriarchal family structure and the maintenance of traditional gender roles.This patriarchal culture encourages women to internalize values involving endurance and submission to maintain family harmony and moreover expects women to identify with family, by acting as self-sacrificing mothers, wives, and daughters.The influences of patriarchal gender orders on gender relations in everyday life maintain male dominance and female subordination within the family.
In Taiwan, many studies of migrant women workers have identified the power disparities between migrant women workers and their employers.But the power between employers and migrant workers is not monolithic and static.In her study on the dynamics involved in the relationships between Filipina domestics and their Taiwanese female employers, Cheng (2004) observed that globalization has introduced different relations and power dynamics within the private sphere.Taiwanese female employers redefine their domestic roles as household managers but struggle with deep anxieties associated with their womanhood and motherhood.Lan (2000Lan ( , 2003b) ) also supported this argument by indicating that both live-in care workers and their employers negotiate their boundaries in the domestic politics of food, space, and privacy from one another on a daily basis.
Although replacing female family roles through their work, live-in care workers did not enjoy the same power as true female family members.Under the logic of kinship, which emphasizes blood and marital relations, live-in care workers are excluded and even seen as strangers.This position renders them powerless within the household.For instance, migrant women workers must obey all members of the family, even including young children.No regulations specify what work live-in domestic workers should or should not perform, and thus they are forced to provide twenty-four-hour care and perform endless household duties.If the families of their employers are dissatisfied with their work, migrant women workers are blamed or even beaten by their employers.
The working conditions of live-in care workers can be exacerbated by family kinship relationships.Unlike the West, in Taiwan, 'the family' signifies not a household but rather a network of family relationships that can include multiple households.In Taiwan, close relatives typically maintain close relationships by living either together or in close proximity to one another.However, while the provision of mutual support has many benefits, excessive emphasis on kinship ties can create problems for outsiders.
In sum, patrilineal kinship reinforces the power disparities between migrant women workers and their employers.However, the institutions of both immigration and labor system support this exploitation by patriarchal culture.Global migration can transform the traditional patriarchy faced by live-in care workers in their natal families, but the living and working conditions they face during their employment tie them to a multifaceted oppression.
One might expect that globalization lead to global migration, which would then attract the attention of scholars in different academic disciplines to study the different aspects of the global migration.There are indeed many such studies but very few of them are related to sexual abuse against migrant care workers.Furthermore, due to feminist advocacy, research on sexual violence against women has become important.Yet the sexual violence against migrant women is still ignored.So this chapter uses data drawn from in-depth interviews and documents from newspaper reports to examine the situations faced by live-in care workers in Taiwanese households within the context of transnational migration.

Fieldwork
In Taiwan, live-in care workers suffering abuse from employers cannot seek help via existing channels designed to prevent domestic violence.Help mostly comes from churchaffiliated NGOs providing shelter for battered migrant women workers.Most of these battered migrant women living in shelters submit arbitrations and wait to be transferred to other employers.Few file to sue for physical harm, sexual assault, or rape committed by their previous employers.Therefore, it was impossible for researchers to reach sexually abused migrant women workers directly, and all study participants were referred by church-affiliated NGO personnel throughout Taiwan.

Data collection
This study conducted fieldworks, including participant observation and in-depth interviews, between Sept. 2006 andNov. 2007.Initially, this study performed participant observation at St. Christopher Catholic Church in Taipei as well as shelters for migrant workers organized by church-affiliated NGOs.Subsequently, this study performed indepth interviews with 16 migrant women workers.Five of the 16 migrant women workers interviewed had experienced sexual abuse at the hands of their employers or their families, and three had experienced both sexual and physical abuse.The discussion in the following section is thus derived mainly from these five sexually abused migrant women workers.
Each interview lasted approximately 1.5-3.5 hours, and were mostly conducted either in English, in Chinese, or in the native language of the interviewees (with the assistance of translator).All participants were asked questions regarding their employers, their reasons for working in Taiwan, their living and working conditions, the process and pattern of abuse, and their efforts to seek help.All participants were fully informed of the study objectives, and in-depth interviews were conducted after obtaining written or verbal informed consent.Each study participant was provided with a US$ 20~$25 gift.All interviews were audio-recorded and transcripts are analyzed.

Participants
Table 1 lists the characteristics of the five migrant domestic workers who experienced sexual abuse by their employers (all identified by pseudonyms).Three of the five are from Vietnam, and two are from Indonesia and they are in their thirties and early forties.All but one was married and had children.All had experienced overwork, and some also had experienced inadequate rest and food.Additionally, they were frequently prevented from contacting friends, threatened with deportation, and subject to withholding of salary and documentation.

Name
Portraits Beauty Omar Snow Kim Lisa A 39 year old married Vietnamese woman who was sexually assaulted by the brother of her employer.A 36 year old married Indonesian woman who suffered physical abuse at the hands of the mother of her employer and sexual abuse at the hands of the father of her employer.A 48 year old married Vietnamese woman who suffered severe physical abuse at the hand of the wife of her employer and sexual abuse at the hands of her employer.A 44 year old single Vietnamese woman who suffered sexual assaults at the hands of her employer and his father.A 30 year old married Indonesian woman who suffered physical abuse at the hands of the mother of her employer and sexual assault at the hands of the father of her employer.

Data analysis
All of the interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.Each transcript was checked and read by two persons, the researcher and research assistant, to maximize familiarity with the phenomenon of abuse and ensure consistent interpretation.Thematic analysis was adopted for the data analysis.Data were interpreted based on categories related to socio-cultural contexts, family care and housework arrangements in everyday situations, and the concept of micro disciplinary technology was adopted to describe physical and sexual abuse.This study also probed scenarios and activities that can be identified and assigned to thematic interpretations of the problems of sexual abuse faced by these five migrant domestic workers in the Taiwanese households in which they worked.

Documentary analysis
This study conducted a documentary analysis of the newspaper reports and court transcripts to understand the situation faced by sexually abused migrant women workers.Since 1992, there were approximately 104 cases of sexual violence against live-in care workers reported by the newspapers.Perpetrators of fifty-five cases (approximately 53%) reported by the newspapers were sentenced while 49 cases were not guilty.
Furthermore, this study also used data from court transcripts.Between 2001 and 2010, there were nine cases from judicial court.Seven perpetrators of nine cases were sentenced while two perpetrators were not guilty.Six victims of nine cases are Indonesian and the other three victims are from Filipina, Vietnam, and China.Eight victims of nine cases were sexually abused by their employers and relatives.One victim was sexually abused by her agent.The incident of sexual abuse occurred mainly in the household of their employer while one incident occurred in outside of the employer's household.
The numerical discrepancy between cases reported by newspapers and cases reported by judicial courts is primarily due to the lengthy nature of Criminal Law procedures.Almost no employers are willing to hire abused migrant care workers, and particularly when they are involved in lawsuits.Consequently, most sexually abused migrant care workers choose not to press charges.The cases of some sexually abused migrant care workers are simply not represented in the court records owing to no sentence being handed down.

The family secret of multiple abuse
Taiwan currently hosts an estimated 190,000 live-in care workers, mainly from Indonesia and Vietnam.Restricted by onerous regulations associated with the foreign labor system, migrant women workers often experience workplace exploitation and abuse.Despite the high risk of sexual abuse at the hands of employers, few official complaints are made and few stories of abuse become public.Such incidents of sexual abuse frequently remain secret because of the isolated nature of workplaces and the deep social stigma associated with sexual assault.
As Radford & Tsutsumi (2004) observed, globalization increased opportunities for violence by men in rich countries against poor women from the Third World.However, the abusers include both female and male employers.According to the fieldwork of Pan and Yang (2011), physical abuse against live-in care workers tends to occur following sexual abuse within individual households.Domestic workers suffering sexual abuse at the hands of family members not living in the same household as their employer do not generally also suffer physical abuse.In the case of sexual assaults of domestic workers by perpetrators living in the same household as the employer, victims are frequently also suffering physical abuse at the hands of the wife.
The following cases illustrate the circumstances of three of five study participants who endured sexual abuse during their employment as domestic workers in Taiwan.

Case 1
Beauty is a 39 year old married Vietnamese woman and a mother of three children.To improve the living conditions of her family, Beauty decided to work in Taiwan as live-in care worker.The broker told Beauty that she would only be responsible for caring for the brother of her employer, who was suffering from a mental illness.However, after her arrival Beauty was instead sent to care for the father of her employer, who was staying in a hospital.The father died after two months, and Beauty was then sent back to the home of her employer to care for the mother of her employer and his newborn daughter.
Beauty was employed by a typical Taiwanese family composed of multiple households and enormous numbers of relatives.Beauty had to do housework for these family relatives everyday.Rising at 4:30 am, Beauty began cleaning and washing up, then took 'A-Ma' (the mother of her employer) to the nearby park to exercise.Beauty then had to return home sufficiently early to prepare breakfasts for the family.In the daytime, all family members went to school or work.Alone with only 'A-Ma' and a young baby girl, Beauty was responsible for taking care of them.While the baby was sleeping after lunch, she had to do housework for nearby relatives and then returned to prepare dinner.By the time she had completed all of her work, it was typically almost 11 pm.Usually Beauty took her meals only after everyone else had finished, but she said that since the family gave her enough to eat she felt it was okay.
An incident occurred when Beauty was cleaning the house of the older brother of her employer.Beauty and the older brother of her employer were the only persons at home, and the brother, lying on the bed dressed only in his underpants, asked her for a massage.As Beauty later said, 'that was really embarrassing'.Beauty gently refused and complained to 'A-Ma' when she returned home.Unfortunately, the situation did not improve, and on a subsequent occasion the older brother touched her inappropriately while she was working at his home.She ran back home and complained to 'A-Ma' again, and in response was dismissed without reason.
During the interview, Beauty had already spent several months living in a shelter operated by the church-affiliated NOG, and was waiting for a new assignment to another household.After suffering an incident of sexual harassment, Beauty preferred not to complain because, in her words: "every member of this family was good to me".

Case 2
Omar is a 36 year old Indonesian woman who is married and a mother of two sons.Omar was working in Taiwan for the first time, after having previously worked for six years in Malaysia and Brunei.The household of her employer comprised eight family members, including the couple employing her, their parents, their three young children, and one adult brother.Besides caring for this large household, Omar also had to do housework for another brother of her employer, who was married and lived nearby.
Omar had to get up at 6 am every day and begin the daily work of cleaning the five-story house, washing clothes, and preparing breakfast for the parents of the employer, 'A-Ma' and 'A-koun.'She also prepared lunch and dinner for the whole family.
Omar suffered sexual harassment from 'A-koun', the 77 year old father of her employer, who had limited mental function.Despite working in a big house, Omar had no private space of her own, instead sharing a room with the parents of her employer where she slept on the floor beside their bed.At night, 'A-koun' frequently touched her.She complained about this situation to 'A-Ma' (his wife) who did nothing to help but did become jealous.
One afternoon when Omar was bathing 'A'Koun', he asked her for sexual services.Subsequently, 'A-koun' played with himself in front of Omar, and continued to do this regularly.When Omar complained to her broker, the employer, and 'A-Ma', their response was simply 'it is okay, he is just an old man.It doesn't matter'.Omar felt sad and angry that nobody cared about what she was going through.Omar eventually decided not to tolerate her situation any longer and phoned the Department of Labor, which gave her the telephone number of a church-affiliated NGO.She then ran away.

Case 3
Snow is a 48 year old married Vietnamese woman and a mother of two sons.To support her poor family, Snow came to Taiwan two years ago to work as a live-in care worker.While she knew that she would have to work for a family with multiple households, she had no idea how harsh the work would turn out to be.Following sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her employers, she eventually underwent psychotherapy at a shelter established by a Vietnamese pastor.The father described his impression of Snow as follows: 'as a human being her dignity was totally destroyed by this family.Recently her has returned and she has also gained some weight.' For the past two years, Snow worked for a middle-aged couple.Her employer was a busy businessman, with a wife who stayed at home.The wife demanded Snow cover her mouth with a surgical mask while in the house.Failure to comply was punished with a US$3.5 deduction from her salary.Every day Snow had to perform housework for three relatives, including two sisters of her employer, in addition to preparing dinner for the employer and his wife.Consequently, Snow only had time for one meal per day herself.Whether Snow ate lunch depended on her employer's wife.If the wife ate lunch, she might give the leftover rice or noodles to Snow.But if the wife did not eat lunch, Snow also went without lunch.Sometimes Snow was allowed to cook, but only plain noodle soup, without even salt or oil.Consequently Snow was perpetually starving.Facing food deprivation and an excessive burden of housework, Snow lost significant body weight.Snow's employer and his sisters all knew what Snow was experiencing, but nobody was willing to intervene against the wife.The sisters of Snow's employer secretly fed Snow when she worked at their houses.
Snow did not have a room of her own despite the house having numerous empty rooms.Instead, Snow was forced to sleep outside on the balcony.Snow used to put an umbrella up if it was raining, and paid a heavy price if the umbrella did not work.Snow's telephone card was held by her employer's wife, who prevented her from making phone calls.One day when Snow forgot to put her mouth mask on, her employer's wife cursed her hysterically and hit her around the head.Snow was beaten by the wife almost daily, depending on her mood swings.
One day, when her employer was not at home, his wife hit Snow's head against the wall.Snow pleaded for the beating to stop, but the wife continued.Snow eventually fainted and the wife dashed water on her face.Snow asked her broker to come and arrange a change of employer but her broker refused to get involved.The sisters of her employer then cared for Snow and asked her to see the doctor, but Snow was unwilling.Snow suffered abuse not only from the wife of her employer but also from the employer himself.She recounted that her employer had asked her to have sexual relations with him when his wife was not at home on three or four occasions.When Snow refused, her employer threatened to send her back to Vietnam, and so Snow consented under duress.One day Snow told her employer's wife about this situation, and the wife responded by beating her more frequently than ever.Snow could not talk to anyone outside the family except when disposing of the garbage in the evening.One day while Snow was waiting for the garbage car, a fellow Vietnamese female worker asked why she had bruises.Snow told this woman her horrible situation and the woman gave her the Vietnamese pastor's cellular phone number.Snow phoned the pastor, and then fled the house by taxi.
Taiwanese society has low tolerance for sexual violence against women, but migrant women workers are often an exception.The exploitation of migrant women workers as sexual objects is sometimes taken as a way of protecting marital relations by reducing the probability of affairs involving male family members.Consequently, families typically prefer to treat this issue as a family secret, creating a conspiracy of silence.The story of Beauty, described above, reflects this family conspiracy to hide sexual violence against migrant women workers.When Beauty refused to have sex with her employer's brother, her employer immediately sent her to the office of the Department of Labor.In the stories of Omar and Snow, the wives of the perpetrators avoided dealing with the behavior of their husbands, and instead expressed their negative emotions such as anger and jealousy through physically abusing the victims of that behavior.
The most common threat made to migrant women workers was being sent back to their home countries.This threat was frequently made by employers subjecting workers to unreasonable work expectations, including working for multiple employers and providing sexual services.For example, Snow was forced to have sexual relations with her employer under threat of being sent back to Vietnam.Her employer's wife knew of this incident but offered no sympathy, instead yelling: 'why don't you leave my house?' contradicting this on other occasions by saying 'If you dare to leave, I would not let you back again.' The reasons behind the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault of migrant women workers in households are unclear.Some attribute the phenomena to a lack of personal space, as occurs in the cases of Omar and Snow, while others attribute it to the patriarchal culture of Taiwan.This study has demonstrated that employers frequently utilize strategies such as threats of dismissal and being sent back to their home countries, as well as coarse language, to discipline female migrant workers and ensure their compliance, obedience and subordination.However, the PGFDW reinforced exploitation in everyday household relationships.

The media, the law and abused live-in care workers
The informal and personalized nature of domestic work increases the risk of live-in domestic workers being abused, yet such abuse is rarely reported to the authorities.The results of this study have also revealed the discrepancies of number between abused and reported.For example, since 2001 there were approximately 100 newspaper reports on sexual assaults against migrant women workers in Taiwan, but there were only nine cases presented in Court Proceedings.Besides, according to one advocator of a famous NGO for migrant workers in North Taiwan, the organization provided helps for 400 abused migrant women workers every year, but she believed that the number of being abused migrant women workers should be higher than 400 hundred cases (The United Daily News, Oct. 17,2007, C2).
Reasons for not reporting to the authorities or not escaping from the workplace are threats by perpetrators to 'terminate the contract' (Min Sheng Daily News, Dec. 3, 2004, A4) and 'send you back to home country' (The United Daily News, Dec. 29, 2007, C2).In 2005, the newspaper revealed that more than fifty Vietnamese women workers were raped by a broker and his son (The United Daily News, May 27, 2005, C4).One Catholic father from a NGO for Vietnamese workers pointed out that the tragedy of these abused Vietnamese women workers is caused by the regulations governing foreign labor worker in which migrant workers are not allowed to change their employers and switch employment categories.The father called this 'the murder by the system' (The Min Sheng Daily News, May, 19, 2005, A2).
According to the Court Proceedings and newspaper reports, most perpetrators of sexual assault against migrant women workers are their employers, their employer's relatives and brokers.Few incidents are caused by the strangers.Most abused migrant women workers endured sexual abuse in their employment for a long period of time (The United Evening News, Dec. 16, 2000, No.5) and suffered from physical harms and psychological trauma (The United Evening News, Jan. 2, 2004, No. 6;The Liberty Times, Sept. 17, 2008, B2).Some even attempted to commit suicide (The United Evening News, Dec. 16, 2000, No. 5).
According to Pan and Yang's study (2012), the abuse against live-in care workers is prevalent in Taiwan, because families tend to treat this issue as a family secret.But a case drew much national attention.Rose, a Filipina live-in care worker, was raped by her employer who is a famous legislator in Taiwan.After the incident, Rose escaped from the workplace and seeked helps from the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taipei.The MECO reported to the Taipei City Center for Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault (TCCPDVSA).One NGO for migrant worker rights in Taipei tried to help Rose.Rose was sent back to the Philippines a week later.This legislator claimed that he is innocent while his wife made a compromise with Rose via the MECO.Rose was paid for US $ 28,000 but she had to go back to her home country and never tells the truth of this incident again (The United Daily News, Feb. 16, 2004, A3).The week before Rose left Taiwan, there was nobody who could contact with her even the workers of this NGO.Rose told her friends that she was confined by the MECO and forced by administers of the MECO to sign a compromised contract with her employer's wife (The United Daily News, Feb. 17, 2004, A3).
According to Ong (1991), Asian families typically regard workers as children who should obey their 'parents' (i.e.supervisors).Taiwanese family dynamics and relations in everyday life are significantly influenced by the patriarchal family value and cultural norms, which maintain male dominance and female subordination within the family.This patrilineal culture and gender norm may put live-in care workers at a double disadvantage within Taiwanese household.Migrant women workers are expected to act as a daughter of this family but they do not have the same right as daughters.
Taiwanese often perceive migrant women workers as the property of the family.Some employers may assume that live-in care workers would like to do anything even sexual trade for money since they mostly come from poor families.Consequently, the employers who raped the live-in care workers did not feel guilty for their behaviors because they thought they paid for the trade.One guy raped the migrant women worker who takes care of his grandmother when his grandfather was not at home.He said, 'it's a loss not to do this when my grandfather was not at home' (The United Daily News, March 22, 2008, A19).Many perpetrators of sexual assault against live-in care workers have argued that the incident is a kind of 'sexual trade.'For example, as the Court Proceedings of N1 and N2 show, the live-in care workers were forced to have sex with their employers, but their employers claimed that the migrant women worker agreed to have sex with him because he gave money to her (see The above discussions revealed that most perpetrators of sexual assaults against migrant women workers are neither recidivists nor persons with criminal records.Many of them are from middle class with highly educated background (The United Daily News, Aug. 20, 2003, A8).Why did they dare to do this and did not care about how the family would react to this incident?It is not easy to explain this.It seems that this is related to many factors.Pan and Yang (2012) called this prevailing phenomenon of sexual violence against migrant women workers in Taiwan 'conspiracy of silence.' And, Anderson (2001) attributed this phenomenon to the multifaceted oppression embedded in the dynamics of race, gender, and class.Feminist scholars such as Mantouvalou (2006) and Pyle (2006) characterized the living circumstances faced by migrant domestic workers in industrial countries as 'domestic slavery' or 'modern-day slavery.'

Conclusion
No matter what globalization means this term gains its tremendous popularity even outside the academic.Sometimes it means global migration, which brings up the optimistic argument but the pessimistic argument also play its role to show the old dark side recurrent in the new context of global migration.Yet by repeating old argument, many studies indicate the old but still important issues such as the exploitation of migrant care workers.This study demonstrates how the aging population and the low birth rate in Taiwan intersect with the trend of global migration and bring in migrant care workers and analyzes the exploitation of these worker such as overwork even work for multiple households which is against the law.
But this study also argues that exploitation cannot fully explain the whole situation of migrant care workers by showing the sexual abuse against these workers, which is ignored by studies of migration and sexual violence against women.Although this study does not present the specific characteristics of this sexual abuse compared to other sexual violence, it seem that most migrant women care worker are sexually abused by the employers and their relatives and these workers suffered from long-term and continuous sexual abuse.It is very difficult for these workers to file a suit, because they face the employers who have tremendous power over them and the labor regulations and the policy by the government.This study has investigated the social-cultural context in Taiwan, which leads to the sexual abuse by the employer and his relatives.This study also reveals prejudice/stereotype/ideology, which operates in this context to justify or cover up the sexual abuse.For example, why the sexual abuse against care workers tends to be covered up by the family is this not related to race, class, and indifference to the outsider/foreigner status or xenophobia and micro-power politics.The male employers justify their abusive behavior by claiming that this is a trade and they had already paid the money.Is this justification not related to gender discrimination or the kind of stereotype that if the migrant women worker is willing to sell her labor, she is willing to have sex with the employer for money?

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Population structure of Taiwan in the next 50 years 11