licenses, savings, sign transfer documents, etc., causing double harm to the
victims of migrant workers throughout the process.
182. To prevent the occurrence of sexual assault and sexual harassment of migrant
workers, the MOL implemented a pre-employment seminar system in July
2016 for the first time, requiring employers of migrant workers to participate
in the pre-employment seminar; however, a proxy for the employer may be
appointed to attend the pre-employment seminar. It is also required to carry
out migrant worker inspection after their arrival, and special case inspection is
implemented for employer categories considered at high risk of perpetrating
assault. Nonetheless, in practice, due to insufficient migrant worker inspectors,
the inspection process has been inadequate, and the operation still cannot
effectively prevent the occurrence of sexual assault and sexual harassment.
183. According to the statistics, when migrant workers experience sexual assault or
sexual harassment, most of them choose to call the MOL’s 1955 hotline to file
a complaint. However, most ongoing sexual harassment complaints also
involve employment discrimination and employer-employee disputes, and
these kinds of cases are not subject to mandatory report. Consequently, when
the labor affairs personnel receive sexual harassment complaints, the
personnel may be lacking in sensitivity and often classify such migrant worker
complaint cases as employer-employee dispute cases, leading to improper
treatment and handling of such cases.
184. In view of the increase of numbers of home caregivers, it has been important
to formulate suitable regulation. Although the MOL completed the preliminary
writing of the Domestic Worker Protection Act Draft on March 15, 2011,
nonetheless, due to the factors such as lack of consensus from various
industries disputing this Act, the implementation of long-term care systems,
and others, the draft has been rejected by the Executive Yuan and returned to
the Ministry for further review. To protect foreign home caregivers’ labor
rights and personnel safety and to establish effective mechanisms, the MOL
should insert the principle of guarantee of physical safety of the person into
the Domestic Worker Protection Act draft to maintain household workers’
fundamental rights.
Workplace Safety and Prevention of Occupational Accidents
185. Since the official introduction of migrant workers in 1989, migrant workers
have become an indispensible labor source in our society. Presently, there are
430,000 migrant workers working in manufacturing industries in Taiwan, the
sector with the greatest number of migrant workers, accounting for 60% of
migrant workers overall. From 2010 to 2018, the rate of occupational injuries
continued to exhibit a decreasing trend, and the overall occupational injuries
rate per thousand in 2019 was reduced to 2.50, reaching the target of less than
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