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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:34 am
Time: 11:34 am
Results for forced labor (taiwan) (malaysia)
1 results foundAuthor: Verité Title: Vulnerability to Broker-Related Forced Labor among Migrant Workers in Information Technology Manufacturing in Taiwan and Malaysia Summary: The phenomenon of trafficking for labor exploitation is importantly played out in the Philippines, which has the second highest rate of employment of its citizens abroad in the world. With some 2,700 Philippine workers leaving daily for jobs abroad and approximately eight million citizens stationed overseas, some have estimated that one in three households in the Philippines has or had a member employed abroad.1 Malaysia and Taiwan, the two “receiving” countries of Philippine workers of focus for this study, both host substantial numbers of Philippine workers each year. In 2008 there were approximately 200,000 Philippine workers employed in Malaysia;2 and 90,000, in Taiwan.3 The conditions of these Philippine workers while abroad are troublesome – one NGO has estimated that one overseas Philippine worker is killed at work each day; while 21 return home in various forms of distress, including having suffered non-payment of wages, or emotional or physical abuse.4 Verité’s own work has found all the hallmarks of debt bondage among overseas Philippine workers, including highly leveraged debt in order to finance usurious recruitment fees; deception on the part of labor brokers as to salary and job type; and, while on the job, illegal salary withholdings, compromised freedom of movement, and compulsory overtime. To illuminate the special situation of foreign contract workers and identify appropriate policy responses, Verité undertook in 2004 and 2005 a project to study both legal protective regimes and on-the-ground practices in seven countries in Asia and the Middle East.5 Verité’s findings provided important original research on the practices and processes of labor broker arrangements in particular – including fees charged by brokers and employers and financing schemes entered into to fund the fees – and the ways in which these broker arrangements affected the conditions workers faced upon arrival in a destination country. The findings from Verité’s 2005 report have been amply bolstered by more current news reports on the plight of Philippine contract workers in Malaysia and Taiwan;6 as well as by ongoing Verité audits of IT and other manufacturing facilities in those two countries and elsewhere in the region. Issues related to exploitative labor brokerage practices have consistently been referenced in US Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report for Taiwan. The TIP Report for 2009 which places Taiwan at a Tier 2, cites it as primarily a destination for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. The report also noted that “trafficking victims are usually workers from rural areas of Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, brought into Taiwan for employment in low-skilled work through various intermediaries – recruitment agencies and brokers.” The Report cites further that, “Many migrant workers are charged job placement and service fees up to the equivalent of USD 14,000, some of which are unlawful, resulting in substantial debt that unscrupulous labor brokers or employers may use as a coercive tool to subject the workers to involuntary servitude… Labor brokers often help employers forcibly deport “problematic” employees, thus allowing the broker to fill the empty quota with a new foreign worker who must pay placement and brokerage fees that may be used to subject them to involuntary servitude.”7 This current report builds Verité’s prior work, as well as the work of others. In the pages below, Verité will explore these and other factors related to labor brokers and forced labor in our research. Details: Amherst, MA: Verité, 2010. 101p. Source: Help Wanted Hiring, Human Trafficking And Modern-Day Slavery in The Global Economy Regional Report: Internet Resource: Accessed March 25, 2012 at http://www.verite.org/system/files/images/HELP%20WANTED_A%20Verite%CC%81%20Report_Migrant%20Workers%20in%20Taiwan%20%2526%20Malaysia.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Asia URL: http://www.verite.org/system/files/images/HELP%20WANTED_A%20Verite%CC%81%20Report_Migrant%20Workers%20in%20Taiwan%20%2526%20Malaysia.pdf Shelf Number: 124749 Keywords: Forced Labor (Taiwan) (Malaysia)Human TraffickingInformation TechnologyMigrant Workers |