Article 5 Measures to Safeguard Various Rights
Southbound Policy were recruited by unscrupulous agencies and subsequently
subjected to labor exploitation and maltreatment. These instances are seen
as a new form of human trafficking.110 The MOL has written to the Ministry of
Education (MOE) asking for the creation of a list of high-risk schools that enroll
students through scholarship programs but fail to provide the scholarships as
agreed upon and instead arrange for students to work in factories. However,
the on-site inspections conducted by the MOE, which started in 2021, have yet
to discover any violations of the labor rights of foreign students. Also, the MOL
has not received notification of any cases from MOE special inspections that
would require their intervention or the involvement of local governments.111
88. Recommendations: The NHRC believes that the above-mentioned inspection
results deviate from actual circumstances.112 The MOE and the MOL should
increase the number of inspection visits and strengthen procedures for
issuing timely warnings and protecting the rights of students. The regulations
stipulated in Article 5 of the Labor Standards Act in Taiwan regarding forced
labor may be inadequate to protect foreign students and other high-risk
groups. The competent authorities should plan to revise the regulations and
incorporate ILO indicators of forced labor into domestic laws to ensure their
effective enforcement in Taiwan.
110
111
Liberty Times (2022, Jan 27). Dean at Chung Chou University searched and detained for Ugandan student labor scam .
Retrieved from https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/society/breakingnews/3814625.
MOE and MOL responses in NHRC discussion meeting (2023, Jan 17). Since the second semester of the 2021 academic
year, the MOE has been reviewing the foreign student enrollment and counseling information of 136 schools. Priority
is given to conducting unannounced on-site inspections of schools subjected to preliminary warnings and schools
subjected to special supervision. In the second semester of the 2021 academic year, 16 schools were inspected, and in
the first semester of the 2022 academic year, 21 schools were inspected. Investigations have yet to find any labor rights
112
violations against foreign students.
Recently, cases involving forced labor under the pretense of overseas internships, such as the Chung Chou University
Ugandan student labor scam and the Kao Yuan University work-study scam, have come to light. On October 11, 2021, the
Chung Chou University case was prosecuted by the Changhua District Prosecutors’ Office on charges of fraud and human
trafficking. According to the written reply of the Ministry of Justice on March 16, 2023, the Kao Yuan University work-study
scam is still under investigation.
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