The Council for Labor Affairs (CLA) will launch a nationwide campaign on Monday that encourages runaway foreign workers to turn themselves in to the pertinent government agencies or police, which the council says will help the workers and treat them fairly.
According to statistics provided by the National Police Administration, the number of missing foreign workers last month hit a record high of 10,484 -- including 4,116 Indonesians, 2,880 Vietnamese, 1,581 Thais and 1,091 Filipinos.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
The Employment Service Law (就業服務法) stipulates that employers who hire illegal foreign laborers -- either runaways or those with expired work visas -- could be fined as much as NT$750,000 for the first offense. Employers could be sentenced to up to three years in prison and fined as much as NT$1.2 million for a second offense.
Manpower companies which assists illegal and runaway workers could be fined NT$500,000 for a first offense and those responsible could be sentenced to a year in jail for subsequent offenses.
The workers themselves face fines of NT$150,000 and could be prohibited from working in Taiwan.
Under the amnesty program, those runaways who turn themselves in by November 30 will not be fined, said Chen Chu (陳菊), the cabinet minister responsible for the labor council. Furthermore, Taiwan will work with the governments of the workers' home nations to expedite the process of repatriating the workers and reuniting them with their families, Chen said.
"We and the representative offices of those labor-sourcing nations will help those runaways. Those with passports lost or confiscated by employers or mediators will be issued new ones, and their governments have promised to help them find news jobs in other countries or in their own," Chen said.
"I hope you [runaways] show up as soon as possible ... I hope you can understand that we want to help, and this is our main purpose," she said
Fred Hung, deputy director-general of the police administration, said: "The police will treat runaway migrant workers who come to us with much respect for their basic human rights."
Those who report the whereabouts of escaped migrants workers to the government will be awarded with NT$2,000 per case, said the labor council.
Officials for the four major labor-sourcing nations -- The Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand -- have all expressed their support for the new policy.
"Runaway Vietnamese workers seriously damage our nation's image," said Hoang Nhu-ly, Vietnam's representative to Taiwan.
"Please contact police stations, the labor council or the Vietnamese representative office," Hoang urged fellow Vietnamese.
But the representative for The Philippines urged Taiwan's government to pay more attention to those factors that force foreign worker to escape from their employers in the first place.
"We found that heavy workload, inadequate food, physical and sexual abuse -- as well as excessive, illegal collections of fees by manpower agencies -- are the major contributing factors," said Romulo Manlapig, deputy director of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei.
"We hope the CLA will look sympathetically at those onerous causes that compel some to runaway," he said.
Those who want more information about the amnesty program can call the following information hotlines for assistance in their own language:
(English) 0800-885-885
(Thai) 0800-885-995
(Indonesian) 0800-885-958
(Vietnamese) 0800-017-858
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