Kaohsiung authorities this week said they discovered four unregistered migrant workers who were allegedly confined at a tofu factory in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (岡山).
The workers are two Indonesian women, nicknamed Afan and Alu, a Vietnamese man and a Filipino.
Two suspects were arrested: the factory boss, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and an alleged migrant workers’ broker, a man surnamed Yang (楊), Kaohsiung City Police Chief Chen Chia-chin (陳家欽) said.
Afan told police she signed up to work as a caregiver in Taiwan, but after arriving 14 years ago she was sold by her broker to the factory to work as an undocumented laborer, police said.
Afan said her passport and identification documents were taken to prevent her from escaping and that she worked at the factory from 6am to 9pm every day, without days off or overtime pay, for the past 14 years.
She told police she planned to earn money for her family to improve their livelihood.
However, while she was in Indonesia, she borrowed about NT$350,000 from the brokerage to train as a caregiver, learn basic Chinese-language skills and to pay for her hiring contract.
“Every day we had to work with the machines and we were confined to the second floor of the factory. We were not allowed to leave and never went outside,” she said.
Afan was paid less than NT$19,273 per month and a broker would wire the money to her family in Indonesia.
She said all four migrant workers were reported as missing.
“The broker told us that as long as we paid him a monthly fee, we would earn a monthly wage,” Afan said.
Tsai and Yang allegedly threatened the workers, saying that they had police and political contacts that would punish them if they tried to escape.
Police and Kaohsiung City Government Labor Affairs Bureau inspectors had visited the factory, but needed a search warrant.
The migrant workers were allegedly told to hide during inspections.
Afan said she saved some money and asked her Taiwanese coworkers to buy her a mobile phone in November last year so she could send text messages to her family in Indonesia.
Afan’s family reported her situation to the Economic and Trade Office in Indonesia, who contacted police in Kaohsiung.
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