Focus Taiwan
Date: 09/01/2020
By: William Yen and CNA intern Meryl Kao

Taipei, Sept. 1 (CNA) A U.S. special diplomatic envoy on Tuesday asked for Taiwan to ban the collection of recruitment fees, service fees, or deposits from migrant workers in the interest of preventing human trafficking.

The request was delivered in a pre-recorded message by U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking-in-Persons John Cotton Richmond and was played in Taipei at the 2020 International Workshop on Combating Human Trafficking.

"Taiwan should ban recruitment agencies and employers from charging foreign workers recruitment fees, service fees, or deposits — and they should enforce the ban. Employers should bear these costs," Richmond said.

These fees and deposits often create vulnerabilities among migrant fishermen that later allow them to be exploited by unscrupulous labor recruitment brokerage systems, Richmond said.
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