Tracking foreign residents in Taiwan

Discussion Open Forum
1

All foreigners living and working in Taiwan have an ARC with the address of their company and residence, and phone number for contact. So the authorities here can find us here easily (aided greatly by the fact that as waiguorens we stick out like sore thumbs). Now, what my question is - can we request access to this information in order to locate another foreign resident?

Now I know what you’re thinking, but no - I’m not planning on stalking anyone. Here’s the story: a friend of mine had a one-night stand with another waiguoren last month. He was just down in the city for the weekend with his mates, and works in a small town in another county in Taiwan. I think you can guess where this is leading…she’s scared because she’s late, and the doctor told her that she needs to wait for another period to skip to be sure, but most likely she’s pregnant. She’s not going to have an abortion for religious reasons and said that if she went back to her home country with a baby and no husband her family would disown her (she’s Indonesian). She’s a young girl, only 20, very naive and not very educated, a factory worker here who’s in a strange country adrift with not many close friends or family, and she’s very confused and doesn’t know what to do.

I agreed to help her find the guy who knocked her up to somehow try and settle the matter. She’s tried calling his phone number many times but he doesn’t return her calls, all she gets is his voice mail. She knows what county he works in, but not the name of the town. She knows his first and last name (thankfully…I was a bit worried that maybe she only caught his first one). I can understand his wanting to run - after all, this is every single male’s worst nightmare, to get a girl you barely know in trouble that way. Always use protection… I don’t want to give out any more specific details like real names and locations. I’m just wondering if anyone here knows if there’s any way I can go to, say, Immigration and find out where this guy works so that she can take a bus up to that town and talk to him.

2

[quote]She’s a young girl, only 20, very naive and not very educated, a factory worker here who’s in a strange country adrift with not many close friends or family, and she’s very confused and doesn’t know what to do.
[/quote]
If she is indeed pregnant, the matter will be out of yours and hers hands – foreign workers who get pregnant here are automatically deported. I don’t think the police will be willing to divulge the info you seek, but in any case, it won’t matter, unless he’s willing to go live in Indonesia with this girl. What a sad story.

3

Must be a crappy doctor who told her she would have to wait on skipping two periods to confirm her pregnancy. Spend the 95 nt at Watsons.

It makes me suspect the whole story.

4

a 20 year old girl? really…if such is the case, you lead and let her follow. take her for an abortion. she is in hock up to her ears just to come here. she’ll thank you forever if you help prevent her from going home broke and knocked up. yup, take her for an abortion.

5

I thought female foreign workers had to be 25 years old to come here.

6

First do what Fox said, and if positive, do what Yank said. The earlier it’s done, the better. I know someone who works in an obs/gyn clinic, if that’s any help.

7

If you do find the guy, then what ? I get the feeling he’s not going to marry her and move to Indonesia…
I agree that Watsons is the first place to go, right now, if not sooner.

8

Abortion is technically illegal here, but is mainly performed under OK conditions, as far as I’m aware. If she turns up at a countryside clinic and gets it performed there, no-one will tell the government, and she should be in the clear.

9

Excuse me, gentlemen, but didn’t anyone read the original post? The lady in question does not want to have an abortion for religious reasons. Don’t want to sound sexist or anything, but the “gentleman” in question should probably shoulder a bit more than his proper share of the responsibility for this one, if the woman really is so young and has so little education and world experience. And sorry, guys, there ARE things in life that don’t just go away if you throw money at them.

Now, how you would go about finding the guy is another question. Fortunately these days DNA testing can work wonders to make people 'fess up – except I’m sure this woman would not have access to those kinds of resources. Likely she’ll just become another sad statistic – another overseas worker sent home, no prospects in her home country, basically a life of grinding poverty ahead – while the man gets off scot-free and saves his NT for whatever it is he wants in his future.

When there are differences in social standing, power, position, or money involved, especially when the man (who normally has more of all of the above, especially in Asian societies), it ain’t just a question of law (“she was over 18”), it’s a question of morals, even if you don’t happen to believe it’s a question of morals in the first place.

10

I don’ think so … supposedly quite a lot of young girls and students have it done…but maybe its a different story when you are a foreigner

11

So, she cant have an abortion for religious reasons. She can have sex before marriage though!!! What religion is that?

12

Yes, we did, and probably others, like me, were thinking that if she set aside her religion’s teachings on pre-marital sex, then she could ignore the ones about abortion, too. Not knowing the guy in question, I think the chances of getting him to shoulder his reponsibility are slim. I also think it very unlikely that the police would help find him. Under the circumstances, the best thing is to try and persuade her to go for the abortion, sooner rather than later.

13

What she chooses to set aside is her business…if indeed she was in a position to set something aside when the event occurred (an event of which we do not know the details, i.e., was there alcohol involved, was the encounter consentual on both sides, to what degree is her isolation in a foreign country, her lack of education, etc. a factor – I’m not saying either way on any of these.)

However, I believe that most thinking people would acknowledge that there is a difference between breaking the prohibition against pre-marital sex (assuming she thought about it and just set it aside) and breaking the prohibition against killing (which, if she objects to abortion on religious grounds, is the basic issue here – mind you I’m not debating abortion in general here).

If you had to uphold every tenet of any religion 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to say you were part of that religion, there would be no one around to be members of any religion. However, it doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who take their religion seriously, even if they don’t uphold 100% of its teachings at all times, either because they have thought about it and reject the specific prohibition (a good example are the thousands of American Catholics who use birth control) or because they have simply failed to uphold it (aka “sin” in Christianity) but would like to do better in the future.

14

I was ready to opine that the girl, sad as it is, is primarily responsible for her current situation. I say that because, while it does take both a man and a woman to make a baby, if a baby is unwanted, the woman, since she is the one who will become pregnant, and since it is easy enough for the man to run away, should always make certain that some form of birth control is being utilized.

But Ironlady has raised some interesting points, which I think are quite valid. It is irresponsible and immoral for a man to have unprotected sex (and for the woman also) with a woman such as the one described in this thread. It does, as Ironlady stated, seem to me that there was a reckless disregard for the morality of the entire escapade (and I am not referring to the act of premarital sex, but rather to the failure to consider possible consequenses in this particular case for this particular girl).

But I don’t really know what to think! :? Obviously, the easiest way to deal with the matter is an abortion… but the girl has religious convictions that make this choice difficult or impossible… but without an abortion, she may be facing a lifetime of poverty and worse… and worse still, so will her child. If I were the man in this affair, I would have a difficult time living with the knowledge that I helped to put a young woman… and my own child… in such dire circumstances.

Then there is the argument that if the woman was able to put aside her religious convictions which likely frown upon premarital sex, why shouldn’t she be able to do the same with her convictions regarding abortion. This would be a compelling argument, except for one thing. As Ironlady indicated, sins, like crimes, come in varying degrees of “badness”. I was brought up Catholic and attended Catholic grade school and college. I was fortunate, IMO, to have been tought by some very liberal Benadictans.

I was told that there was no sin, per se, in the acts of a premarital sexual encounter. Rather, it was explained to me, the sin is in the selfishness of the acts. Rarely, in premarital sex where the participants hardly know each other and subsequently go their separate ways is there any real act of giving to the other… rather, both parties are just trying to get off. Also, the selfishness is evident in the neglect to consider the consequence of the acts… primarily as it pertains to the new life created.

So, it is quite possible, even if the young woman is not a Catholic, as I suspect she isn’t, that abortion ranks as a much more serious sin compared to premarital sex.

This is a tough one.

15

Being an Indonesian I would assume she is a Muslim. Pre-martial sex or not but where was it said that they didn’t use any form of birth-control? Condoms for example have been known to fail.
But in any case, shitty situation and a tough decision to make. An attempt should be made to locate the alleged father and request his opinion (given she is actually pregnant) and see if they can work or at least somehow sort things out.

16

Anyone with sympathy and compassion would recommend an abortion in this case, wouldn’t they?

However, having a child does not automatically mean a life of misery and hardship. I’d say her situation is not so desperate, just unenlightened.

Not having an abortion because your religion forbids it is likely the most immoral decision one can make. It’s putting form before substance. Having the child and being certain you will not be able to bring it up or receive adequate support is reckless.

I recommend she put it up for adoption it is the lesser of two evils. She should accept the responsibilty, go back to her homeland and find an adoption brocker. Hell she might even be able to make some money. She may well turn a bad situation into a good one for somebody else and not have to live with the guilt of an abortion. If that is a problem for her.

It’s not a tough one. It just requires decisive action. Forget the fella what’s he going to do for her anyway. Is he going to marry her? Is he going to pay child support? Is he going to be there for the child growing up? She already knows she’s better off without him.

Abortion or Adoption.

17

Does she know his nationality?

A lot of foreigners are registered with their government’s representatives, or are registering due to the SARS scare.

While they may take the view that they should protect one of their own, they may equally take the view that their citizens are responsible for their children’s welfare. Child support is an emotive issue, and one that a lot of people will happily bend the rules for.

You may at least get his country’s representative to have a quiet word with him.

Also, did she actually leave a message on his voicemail? I know that a lot of people don’t like talking to machines, and equally a lot of people don’t bother to pick up their messages.

Who’s to say that he is really avoiding her?

18

I knot it’s religion, but I would still opt for the abortion if I were in her shoes. Alone with a kid in Indonesia? That’s bad. Get he/she adopted off? The scars will be deeper when you have been thru the birth I would imagine.

Abortion is technically illegal here, but it’s performed by doctors in regular clinics - I don’t know the fees though.

19

She’s not a Muslim - she’s a Christian, I’m not sure what denomination. I would try and convince her to have an abortion if I could, the sooner the better; however, I think the guy who knocked her up would do a better job of convincing her, naturally. She’s young enough and naive enough to believe that she’s “in love” with this guy that she hardly knows. From what I understand sexual morality in Indonesian society isn’t quite the same as it is in Taiwan or the West - I really don’t know much about the way they do things in that country, but they do do them differently, so there’s that added complication of dealing with a different culture and so I’m hesitant to make value judgements about her decision to jump in the sack with the guy on the first date just yet. There’s a definite power imbalance here, agreed. That night we went out to the pub she said that she was hoping to meet an American/Canadian/Brit boyfriend - she definitely had that specific goal in mind, of hooking up with a Western guy. She’d had a Chinese boyfriend before and didn’t want another, and she said she didn’t want a Filipino/Indonesian man (probably because of the typical “he has no money and I don’t like the chauvinist mentality of men in my country” complaints). So she walks into a pub and sees a handsome, well-mannered and spoken white man with a lot of flash NT dollars from a teaching gig who possesses the possibility to whisk her away to the fabled land of the West where the streets are paved with gold - she’s found her Prince Charming. She didn’t take long to make her decision that this was the man she wanted - he’s everything she could want in her checklist. Now, from his perspective - here’s a cute babe that walks up and asks for a light of her cigarette and strikes up a chat and who goes back home with him that night. Plenty more of those kinds of babes around every Saturday night to his eyes. So there’s a definite imbalance in the relationship. The bloke in question is from the U.K., to answer tmwc’s question - I don’t know if that has much bearing on the matter.

20

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Stick my neck out here… but do you think this could may be an attempt at entrapment of the foreign guy

Is she sure if she is pregnant that he is the father?

Not to say she is the village bicycle or deceptive but she ain’t that innocent if she is picking up guys at bars and then going back for a little roll in the hay

How do you know he is Britsh? Did you talk to him?Have you seen him before?

Maybe she should wait to confirm she is actually pregnant before going any further…

At the moment even if she finds the guy… what is she going to say… I might be pregant so therefore could you/ would you…???..