Taiwan meets minimum standards to ending human trafficking: U.S.

Taipei, Sept. 30 (CNA) Taiwan has maintained its Tier 1 ranking in the latest United States State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report, which said Taiwan's authorities "fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking."

Taiwan, which received a Tier 1 ranking for the 16th straight year in the 2025 report, joined 32 other countries given the top ranking, including Canada, Finland, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the U.S.

The ranking means that Taiwan's government made efforts to address human trafficking and met the minimum standards of the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), but does not mean the problem is nonexistent in Taiwan or that it is doing enough to stop it, the report said.

Taiwan has convicted more traffickers, significantly increased the number of victims referred to services, and investigated cases of suspected forced labor by commercial entities, according to the report.

Taiwanese authorities, however, have investigated fewer cases, prosecuted fewer suspects, and did not fully implement victim identification procedures, which complicated some victims' access to justice and protective care, the report said.

The report also noted deficiencies in Taiwan's regulation of migrant workers and the conditions they work in.

It said insufficient inspection protocols and the "siloing of authorities and responsibilities within different ministries continued to impede efforts to identify, investigate, and prosecute forced labor of migrant workers, including fishing workers in Taiwan's highly vulnerable distant water fishing industry."

Furthermore, restrictions on migrant workers' rights to change jobs mid-contract and authorities' lack of specific labor laws ensuring the rights of migrant domestic caregivers continued to leave thousands vulnerable to exploitation in forced labor, the report said.

The report defined human trafficking as a crime by which "traffickers exploit and profit at the expense of adults or children by compelling them to perform labor or engage in commercial sex."

Taiwan-caught fish remains on the U.S. Department of Labor's biennial "List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor," having been added in 2021 and again in 2023.