US NGO Transparentem released a report in February detailing migrant labor abuses in Taiwan's textiles industry. Now, Taiwan's government watchdog is launching an investigation into the matter. To find out more about the report and what can be done, TaiwanPlus spoke to migrant labor advocate Lennon Ying-da Wang.
00:00Taiwan's government watchdog, the Control Ruyen, has launched an investigation into alleged forced labor in the country's textile industry.
00:07The move follows a report by U.S. NGO Transparentum, published in February.
00:13It said that Taiwanese manufacturers for well-known brands like Nike and Adidas engaged in illegal human rights abuses against migrant workers.
00:21This includes collecting unlawful recruitment fees, arbitrary wage deductions, and workplace intimidation.
00:28Officials have vowed to crack down on offenders if the allegations are true.
00:33To find out more about the migrant labor issues outlined in the Transparentum report, our reporter Leslie Liao spoke to migrant labor rights advocate Lenin Ing-da-Wang.
00:43The report from Transparentum says that there are migrant labor abuses in Taiwan's textile industry.
00:50Can you tell us a little bit more about what the report says?
00:53By and large, most of the migrant workers in the factories in Taiwan, they are facing very similar conditions.
01:01Among the 11 forced labor indicators from ILO, all of them are very common to the migrant workers in Taiwan, such as debt bondage, because most of them, they have to pay a loan before they come to Taiwan.
01:15Sorry, to pay the placement fee.
01:16So they need to borrow a loan for that.
01:19So when they are working in Taiwan, they have to pay the monthly installment for the loan and confiscation of the passport and abusive working and living condition and forced overtime and cheating, threats, intimidation, etc.
01:37There are many, many conditions.
01:38The report specifically mentions the textiles industry, but you said it's not just the textiles industry.
01:44What other industries are affected or have migrant labor rights issues?
01:50There are several different categories categorization for the job, but there are tens of categories in so many kinds of industries.
02:02So textile garment is one, foods, woods, machinery, any kind of machines, high tech, of course, electronics, semiconductors.
02:13You can say that in many different industries, migrant workers were already allowed to be recruited, and most of them, they have a common issue.
02:24Because of this transparent report, the Control Yuan says, or Taiwan's government watchdog says that it's going to launch an investigation.
02:32Now, what can the Control Yuan do if they find that there have been infringements in this textile industry?
02:39Can they do anything at all?
02:41Control Yuan has the power to impeach government officials.
02:45So if they find that the Minister of Labor failed to address these issues after so many years, they have the power and authority to impeach Labor Minister or some of the officials there.
03:01But what we focus is not on impeachment or not.
03:05I think the government can surely do something.
03:08They can change the laws in Taiwan to adopt the international standards.
03:13And actually also, what the Taiwanese government can do is to encourage, to help our suppliers, to help our companies, to talk, to bargain with the international brands.
03:26Because there's a very important part of this very group.
03:29That was Migrant Labor and Rights Advocate Lenin Ngda Wong.
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