Migrant workers in Taiwan face many types of fraud, but often do not report incidents due to language barriers or other factors, a non-governmental organization (NGO) said yesterday.
A survey of migrant workers and foreign spouses uncovered several potential problems in efforts to fight scams targeting migrants, the TransAsia Sisters Association, Taiwan said.
About 30 percent of the 243 respondents to the survey — conducted online and through questionnaires distributed in places frequented by migrant workers in Taoyuan, Taichung and Kaohsiung — said they had experienced financial fraud, but only one-third of them reported their cases to authorities.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The group attributed the reluctance to a lack of readily available multilingual services at police stations.
Migrant workers and new immigrants are more likely to turn to their compatriots or NGOs for help in such situations, the association said.
The most prevalent forms of fraud targeting migrant workers and foreign spouses were online shopping, in which victims said they received counterfeit products or items that did not match the descriptions, it said.
They also encountered fraudsters posing as family members or friends asking to borrow money, or as fake labor brokers.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) said that the reluctance of migrant workers to seek help from government agencies shows that the government is not doing enough.
The 165 anti-fraud hotline only offering Mandarin services is “very unfriendly,” she said.
Wang urged the government to establish multilingual communication channels to ensure migrant workers receive accurate information and to crack down on scammers disguised as labor brokers.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Yue-chin (林月琴) cited migrant worker advocacy group One-Forty as saying that migrant workers in Taiwan last year had collectively been defrauded of about NT$1.7 billion (US$56.7 million), or an average of NT$8,000 per person.
Lin called on the government to improve data collection to better understand the challenges migrant workers face in fraud cases.
Taiwan International Workers’ Association researcher Wu Jing-ru (吳靜如) said that a provision in the Employment Service Act (就業服務法) prevents blue-collar migrant workers — such as fishers and caregivers — from freely changing employers.
That restriction increased the risk of workers being scammed by fraudulent labor brokers when seeking better opportunities, she said.
Workforce Development Agency division head Su Yu-kuo (蘇裕國) said that migrant workers can use the 1955 hotline, which provides multilingual services, to help them identify potential fraud schemes.
The hotline can contact third parties on behalf of workers to verify suspicious situations and report employment-related cases to local labor authorities, Su said.
The Ministry of Labor has also collaborated with the Ministry of Justice and the National Police Agency to compile common scam tactics and legal responsibilities, which is conveyed through airport briefings when migrants first arrive, one-stop entry orientation sessions, the Foreign National Labor Rights Portal, the 1955 E-LINE account on the Line messaging app and subsidized local government awareness campaigns, he said.
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