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Vulnerability to Broker-Related Forced Labor Among Migrant Workers In "#$%&'()!"#*&+,! 45.$!6787! ! ! ! !"#$%&'()#)*+,*-,.&-/%&01%#'*%2,3-&4%2,5'(-&, '6-$7,8)7&'$*,9-&/%&:,)$,;$<-&6'*)-$, =%4>$-#-7+,8'$"<'4*"&)$7,, )$,=')?'$,'$2,8'#'+:)' @A5B,9CD=AEF, @)&)$7G,@"6'$,=&'<<)4/)$7, C$2,8-2%&$0E'+,H#'I%&+,)$, =>%,J#-('#,A4-$-6+ !!"!#$%&'(!)$*$+%,-!+./!"/01,+,2!3.&'&+'&0$! TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments About This Initiative Introduction......................................................................................................................................................... 107 Methodology ....................................................................................................................................................... 107 The Setting .......................................................................................................................................................... 110 a. The Sector b. The Workforce c. The Brokers The Employment Lifecycle of Philippine Workers in Taiwan ........................................................................... 122 a. Recruitment, Hiring and Transport: Paths into Entrapment and Forced Labor b. On the Job: Mechanisms of Coercion and Subjugation/Enslavement The Employment Lifecycle of Foreign Contract Workers in Malaysia.............................................................. 135 a. Recruitment, Hiring and Transport: Paths into Entrapment and Forced Labor b. On the Job: Mechanisms of Coercion and Subjugation/Enslavement Conclusion........................................................................................................................................................... 144 Appendices.......................................................................................................................................................... 147 a. Case Studies of Philippine Workers in Taiwan b. Assessment - The POEA Special Hiring Program for Taiwan c. Philippine Men Trafficked for Labor Exploitation to Malaysia d. Legal and Regulatory Environment Endnotes.............................................................................................................................................................. 197 Help Wanted: Hiring, Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery in the Global Economy 2 Regional Report – Migrant Workers in IT Manufacturing in Taiwan and Malaysia ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Verité gratefully acknowledges the support of Humanity United in implementing this research and advocacy initiative. This initiative is being conducted under the supervision of Dan Viederman, Executive Director; Shawn MacDonald, Project Director; and Erin Klett, Project Manager. In Southeast Asia, Marie Apostol – Director of Verité’s Southeast Asia office –conceptualized the project. Daryll Delgado implemented the field research and reported the results, and Melizel Asuncion conducted the legal review. Debra Hertz edited the field results. Julie Sobkowicz Brown managed the design and layout of the report. ABOUT THIS INITIATIVE This regional research report is a product of Phase I of a multiphase Verité initiative that aims to clarify, publicize, and reduce the risks of exploitation associated with global labor broker practices, as shown below. In Phase I, in-depth field research examined several migration patterns, including: Indian workers (often children) migrating into domestic apparel production, and Indian adults migrating to the Middle East for work in manufacturing, infrastructure and construction; Philippine, Nepalese and Indonesian workers migrating into IT manufacturing in Taiwan and Malaysia; and Thai, Mexican, and Guatemalan workers migrating for work in the U.S. agricultural sector. These diverse locales and populations were intended to provide a variety of representational settings to explore the range of structures by which migrant contract workers are brought into situations of forced labor, and the specific role that labor brokers play. Phase II of the project will provide concrete approaches for the private sector, civil society, government institutions, and investors to address key leverage points and reduce the incidence of modern-day slavery. These Help Wanted: Hiring, Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery in the Global Economy 3 Regional Report – Migrant Workers in IT Manufacturing in Taiwan and Malaysia approaches will include a primer, toolkit and policy brief on the intersections between labor brokerage, human trafficking and forced labor. Sign up on Verité’s webpage to receive updates on project outputs and activities. INTRODUCTION The phenomenon of trafficking for labor exploitation is importantly played out in the Philippines, which has the second highest rate of employment of its citizens abroad in the world. With some 2,700 Philippine workers leaving daily for jobs abroad and approximately eight million citizens stationed overseas, some have estimated that one in three households in the Philippines has or had a member employed abroad.1 Malaysia and Taiwan, the two “receiving” countries of Philippine workers of focus for this study, both host substantial numbers of Philippine workers each year. In 2008 there were approximately 200,000 Philippine workers employed in Malaysia;2 and 90,000, in Taiwan.3 The conditions of these Philippine workers while abroad are troublesome – one NGO has estimated that one overseas Philippine worker is killed at work each day; while 21 return home in various forms of distress, including having suffered non-payment of wages, or emotional or physical abuse.4 Verité’s own work has found all the hallmarks of debt bondage among overseas Philippine workers, including highly leveraged debt in order to finance usurious recruitment fees; deception on the part of labor brokers as to salary and job type; and, while on the job, illegal salary withholdings, compromised freedom of movement, and compulsory overtime. To illuminate the special situation of foreign contract workers and identify appropriate policy responses, Verité undertook in 2004 and 2005 a project to study both legal protective regimes and on-the-ground practices in seven countries in Asia and the Middle East.5 Verité’s findings provided important original research on the practices and processes of labor broker arrangements in particular – including fees charged by brokers and employers and financing schemes entered into to fund the fees – and the ways in which these broker arrangements affected the conditions workers faced upon arrival in a destination country. The findings from Verité’s 2005 report have been amply bolstered by more current news reports on the plight of Philippine contract workers in Malaysia and Taiwan;6 as well as by ongoing independent studies, and Verité audits of IT and other manufacturing facilities in those two countries and elsewhere in the region. Issues related to exploitative labor brokerage practices have consistently been referenced in US Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report for Taiwan. The TIP Report for 2009 which places Taiwan at a Tier 2, cites it as primarily a destination for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. The report also noted that “trafficking victims are usually workers from rural areas of Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, brought into Taiwan for employment in low-skilled work through various intermediaries – recruitment agencies and brokers.” The Report cites further that, “Many migrant workers are charged job placement and service fees up to the equivalent of USD 14,000, some of which are unlawful, resulting in substantial debt that unscrupulous labor brokers or employers may use as a coercive tool to subject the workers to involuntary servitude… Labor brokers often help employers forcibly deport “problematic” employees, thus allowing the broker to fill the empty quota with a new foreign worker who must pay placement and brokerage fees that may be used to subject them to involuntary servitude.”7 This current report builds Verité’s prior work, as well as the work of others. In the pages below, Verité will explore these and other factors related to labor brokers and forced labor in our research. Help Wanted: Hiring, Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery in the Global Economy 4 Regional Report – Migrant Workers in IT Manufacturing in Taiwan and Malaysia METHODOLOGY Research findings were conceptualized and organized according to three main categories: Setting, Employment Lifecycle, and Conclusions (Risks and Root Causes). Researchers explored these topics in rough chronological order, since one naturally leads to the next. Setting seeks to establish a foundation of knowledge of the sector and workforce under study, as well as the legal and regulatory context for the work. This aspect of the research focused particularly on aspects of the Setting that constitute preconditions for vulnerabilities to forced labor. The Employment Lifecycle seeks to situate the role of labor brokers vis-a-vis the different stages in the job cycle; mapping how the various stakeholders (brokers, employers, and workers) interact and the circumstances under which a route into forced labor is paved, and exploring the points in the job cycle in which vulnerability peaks and that are well-suited for policy interventions. Conclusions synthesizes the research on the Setting and Employment Lifecycle and, using the role of labor brokers as a lens and a potential intervention point, articulates some of the root causes of forced labor and the risks of forced labor entailed
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