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Taiwan |
Taiwan |
abuses foreign workers for years |
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★ 2026
Trafficking in Persons Report: Taiwan
(2026-10-8
state.gov/reports/2026-trafficking-in-persons-report/taiwan/
)
Human
traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Taiwan, and traffickers
exploit victims from Taiwan abroad.
Foreign brokers often require migrant workers to pay exorbitantly high
recruitment fees and deposits. As a result, some foreign workers incur
substantial debts, which brokers or employers use to force workers into debt
bondage. Employers often subject migrant workers to abuses indicative of forced
labor, including document retention, restriction of movement, abusive and
unsanitary living conditions, withholding of wages, and imposition of a wage
fine as punishment for mistakes at work. Domestic workers and home caregivers
are especially vulnerable to exploitation since they often live in their
employers’ residences, making it difficult to monitor their working and living
conditions. For-profit universities in Taiwan use third party recruitment agents
to recruit foreign students — including from Indonesia, Eswatini, Sri Lanka,
Uganda and Vietnam — to fill enrollment gaps and subsequently place them into
exploitative labor conditions under the pretense of educational opportunities.
Documented and undocumented Indonesian, Filipino, and Vietnamese, and, to a
lesser extent, Chinese national fishers working on Taiwan-owned and -flagged and
Taiwan-owned, foreign-flagged fishing vessels have experienced non- or
under-payment of wages; long working hours; physical abuse; lack of food or
medical care; substandard safety equipment; and poor living conditions while
indebted to complex, multinational brokerage networks through the continued
imposition of recruitment fees and deposits. Migrant fishers have reported
senior crewmembers employ threats of physical violence, beatings, withholding of
food and water, retention of identity documents, and wage deductions...
★China Times (中國時報, 2026-10-19):
89.5% of respondents are dissatisfied with Taiwan's labor policies regarding migrant workers; among them, 82.4% "very dissatisfied," only 3.4% express satisfaction. 89.4% concerns the management of the Employment Stabilization Fund. 88.6% are dissatisfied with gov. tracking down illegal migrant workers, and 88.2% are dissatisfied with the government's approach to addressing illegal activities or crimes committed by migrant workers. Additionally, 91.3% believe that current policies overlook the rights and needs of employers in Taiwan, and 85% express dissatisfaction with the system governing foreign caregivers employed in households.
★
NYU Stern Center for Human Rights (2026-6-29): The world's largest bike producer ― Taiwan's Giant ― migrant workers paying exorbitant recruitment fees to secure factory jobs, leaving them financially trapped in jobs they could not freely leave. In Sept. 2025, the US government suspected workers were in modern slavery conditions, citing evidence of debt bondage, abusive living and working conditions, withholding of wages, excessive overtime, and abuse of vulnerability. Within weeks of the Withhold Release Order, Giant announced a reimbursement program. It has not yet reached the finish line. Policy adoption is outpacing actual implementation on the ground. The gap between what companies announce and what workers experience remains significant, particularly in the lower tiers of the supply chain where oversight is weakest and leverage is lowest... bhr.stern.nyu.edu/quick-take/progress-under-pressure-forced-labor-remediation-in-taiwans-bicycle-industry/
★Taipei Times (2026-8-22):
multiple complaints from Indonesian workers about recruiting with promises of high pay; but those workers allege forced labor, salary cuts .taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2026/08/22/2003862931
★Nikkei
Asia, Japan (2026-7-13):
Filipino workers locked in bitter labor
dispute with Taiwanese manufacturer.
Between 2023 and 2024, the ministry
received nearly 100,000 complaints from foreign workers, with management issues
among the top concerns.
asia.nikkei.com/economy/filipino-workers-locked-in-bitter-labor-dispute-with-taiwanese-manufacturer
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