Migrant workers in Taiwan facing fraud but reluctant to report it: NGO

Taipei, Aug. 6 (CNA) Migrant workers in Taiwan are facing many types of fraud, but the cases are going underreported because of language barriers and other factors, a non-governmental organization said Wednesday.

At a news conference, the TransAsia Sisters Association, Taiwan, said it identified several potential problems in the effort to fight scams against migrants through interviews over the past year with mainly migrant workers and a small proportion of foreign spouses.

The interviews were conducted through online surveys and questionnaires distributed in places frequented by migrant workers in Taoyuan, Taichung and Kaohsiung, the association said.

The project gathered 243 valid responses, and found that around 30 percent of interviewees had experienced financial fraud, but that only a third of them reported their cases to Taiwanese authorities.

The group attributed this reluctance to report fraud cases to police to a lack of readily available multilingual services at police stations.

According to the association, migrant workers and new immigrants are more likely to turn to their compatriots or NGOs for help in such situations.

According to the survey, the most common prevalent forms of fraud among migrant workers and foreign spouses were online shopping, in which victims said they received counterfeit products or items that did not match the descriptions.

They also faced scammers posing as family or friends asking to borrow money or as fake manpower brokers making unfulfilled job promises.

One of the interviewees, a Thai identified as "Ah Lai," said her friend had been deceived into doing a job that did not pay.

Ah Lai said her friend asked her manpower broker for help to no avail, forcing the friend to leave the job they were contracted to do.

"When we look for jobs, we don't know if it's a scam. However, we can only try our luck. There is no other way," Ah Lai was quoted as saying.

At the news conference presenting the findings, Kuomintang (KMT) lawmaker Wang Yu-min (王育敏) said the reluctance of migrant workers to seek help from government agencies after being scammed shows that the government is not doing enough.

For example, Wang noted that the 165 anti-fraud hotline only operates in Chinese, which she described as "very unfriendly."

She urged the government to establish multilingual communication channels to ensure migrant workers receive accurate information and to crack down on scammers disguised as manpower brokers.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Yue-chin (林月琴) said the extent of the problems faced by migrants was not a surprise because scammers often exploit language barriers.

Citing 2024 estimates by migrant worker advocacy group One-Forty, she said migrant workers in Taiwan had collectively been defrauded of about NT$1.7 billion (US$56.78 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 and to expand user-friendly multilingual services.

Also speaking at the event, Taiwan International Workers' Association (TIWA) researcher Wu Jing-ru (吳靜如) criticized a provision in the Employment Service Act that prevents blue-collar migrant workers -- such as fishers and caregivers -- from changing employers freely.

She argued that this restriction increased the risk of these workers being scammed by fake manpower brokers when seeking better opportunities.

Hsia Hsiao-chuan (夏曉鵑), a founding member of TransAsia Sisters Association and a professor in National Chengchi University's Graduate Institute of Social Work, also stressed the need for the government to improve communication channels.

She said Taiwanese authorities also needed to enhance collaboration with migrant worker organizations and establish accessible reporting and whistleblowing mechanisms for migrant workers and new immigrants.

In response, Su Yu-kuo (蘇裕國), an official at the Workforce Development Agency (WDA) under the Ministry of Labor (MOL), said 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.

Su said the MOL has also collaborated with the Ministry of Justice and the National Police Agency to compile common scam tactics and legal responsibilities, he said.

This information is conveyed, he said, through airport briefings when migrants first arrive, one-stop entry orientation sessions, the Foreign National Labor Rights Portal, the 1955 E-LINE account on LINE, and subsidized local government awareness campaigns, he said.