The Control Yuan today requested an investigation into the government's response to alleged labor abuses in the Taiwanese textile industry, after a report released by a US nongovernmental organization in February found forced labor conditions suffered by migrant workers.
In 2022 and 2023, the organization Transparentem interviewed more than 90 migrant workers from Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand employed by textile suppliers in Taiwan, whose buyers included Amazon, H&M and Adidas, the report said.
The investigation “found evidence of conditions that the International Labor Organization has defined as indicators of forced labor,” the report said.
Photo: Ashley Pon, Bloomberg
Workers also reported recruitment fees up to US$6,000, among the highest identified across multiple countries.
Other labor abuses in the 13 facilities across nine suppliers included retention of identity documents, restriction of movement, and abusive living and working conditions, it said.
The report suggests that textile suppliers had contravened the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) and the Employment Service Act (就業服務法), Control Yuan members Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容) and Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲) said in a news release today.
An in-depth investigation is necessary, as the case concerns labor and human rights protections for migrant workers, and affects Taiwan’s international image, they said.
They questioned whether the relevant authorities had thoroughly examined the root causes of these issues and how they were supervising employers to prevent forced labor and contraventions of the UN’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Article 6 of the covenant regards the right to work, Article 7 requires just and favorable working conditions and Article 9 concerns the right to social security and insurance, they said.
Relevant government agencies have therefore been asked to investigate whether specific countermeasures have been enacted following the findings, they said.
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