Taiwan News
Date: 2019/12/29
By  Central News Agency

A new book that gives a voice to migrant workers and their stories of exploitation and abuse under Taiwan's private broker system was launched at a press conference in Taipei on Saturday.

The "Migrant Worker's Storybook of Employment Agents," published by the Migrants Empowerment Network in Taiwan (MENT), explores the real-life accounts of 15 migrant workers who were allegedly abused and exploited by their brokers while working in the country.

One of the authors, identified only as Wiwin, a 24-year-old migrant worker from Indonesia, said her father pawned his rice paddy for US$1,824 so that she could pay US$1,672 to an employment agency in Jakarta to secure a factory job in Taiwan.

After problems with her paperwork in which the Indonesian broker registered Wiwin as a caregiver, her Taiwanese broker still arrangedfor her to work in a local factory, but the conditions were abusive.

"I would have never imagined that the brokers in Indonesia and Taiwan could have done this to me. I ended up working huge hours from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m," Wiwin said.   [FULL  STORY]