• Empower and resource the Ministry of Labor (MOL) and the Fisheries Agency (FA) to increase labor inspections and improve evidence collection in cases involving Taiwan employment brokers, domestic worksites, and fishing vessels suspected of forced labor in the DWF, and vessels stopping in special foreign docking zones.
• Prioritize and increase cross-ministry training and cooperation to facilitate victim identification, anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts, including evidence collection, between front-line MOL and FA inspectors and law enforcement, judicial police agencies that are responsible for victim identification, Ministry of Justice (MOJ) prosecutors, and judges.
• Continue to strengthen efforts to screen for trafficking among vulnerable populations, including foreign students recruited to for-profit universities and foreign workers falling out of visa status within Taiwan after fleeing abusive working conditions and/or surrendering to immigration authorities, and refer them to protective services.
• Increase efforts to prosecute and convict traffickers under the anti-trafficking law, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should involve significant prison terms.
• Expand the mandate of foreign port-based FA personnel to include victim-centered screening for forced labor indicators among foreign fishing crewmembers; increase FA and labor inspector coverage to all authorized overseas ports; train all maritime inspection authorities on victim identification, referral, and law enforcement notification procedures; and expand the availability of interpretation services for such inspections, especially for Bahasa and Tagalog languages.
• Prohibit employers and domestic and foreign labor brokers from charging migrant workers recruitment, registration, and service fees and deposits, and coordinate with sending countries to monitor and harmonize contract provisions and facilitate direct hiring.
• Allow migrant workers to change jobs mid-contract without employer approval and proactively investigate claims of abuse among workers seeking job changes rather than placing the burden of proof on workers.
• Extend trafficking victim identification authority to key agencies beyond law enforcement officials, such as MOL and FA inspectors, and social workers.
• Formally incorporate civil society input – including manufacturing sector and fisher representatives, experts, and workers – into the labor broker evaluation process.
• Expand the Direct Hiring Service Center (DHSC) and incentivize companies to use it when hiring migrant workers.
• Address gaps in basic labor protections for household caregivers and domestic workers, including by instituting a full ban on the retention of migrant workers’ identity and travel documentation.

Taiwan authorities maintained law enforcement efforts.

The HTPCA, as amended, criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties of up to seven years’ imprisonment and fines up to 5 million new Taiwan dollars (NT) ($152,860); these penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with respect to sex trafficking, commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. Taiwan authorities continued to prosecute the majority of trafficking cases under the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (CYSEPA) and other provisions of the penal code that addressed crimes beyond the international law definition of trafficking, such as Article 231 (forced sexual intercourse or obscene acts), Article 296 (“trading or mortgaging of humans”), and Article 302 (false imprisonment). Some penalties prescribed for child sex trafficking crimes under these laws were lower than those available under the HTPCA, although other laws retained similar penalties. The National Immigration Agency (NIA) maintained formal guidelines detailing the types of human trafficking offenses and the applicable legal provisions for use by officials in law enforcement, labor, social affairs, and other agencies involved in human trafficking cases and service provision. In August 2024, an amendment to the “Communication Security and Surveillance Act” to include crimes under Articles 29, 30, 31 and 33 of the HTPCA as severe criminal offenses which judicial police could apply for communication surveillance warrants for was implemented.

Taiwan authorities reported initiating 124 new criminal trafficking investigations involving 284 alleged perpetrators, including 113 alleged perpetrators of labor trafficking and 171 alleged perpetrators of sex trafficking, compared with 131 investigations involving 316 alleged perpetrators in 2023. Taiwan also continued previously initiated investigations of 33 cases including 15 for sex trafficking and 18 for labor trafficking. Authorities newly prosecuted 259 suspected traffickers in 162 cases – 108 defendants for alleged forced labor, 114 for alleged sex trafficking, and 37 for cases that could not be easily distinguished between sex and labor trafficking; some of these unspecified cases involved organ trafficking which was also criminalized under the HTPCA; this compared with 388 new prosecutions in 153 cases in 2023. Authorities prosecuted at least 230 individuals under anti-trafficking laws, including 70 indicted under the CYSEPA, 14 under the HTPCA, and 146 under other laws and sections of the criminal code. Authorities convicted 58 traffickers, 22 for forced labor and 36 for sex trafficking, compared with 55 convictions in 2023, 19 for forced labor, and 36 for sex trafficking. Authorities investigated two cases initiated from MOL inspections of employment brokers and one case initiated from FA inspections of fishing vessels (compared with no cases investigated as a result of such inspections in 2023). Authorities reported some of the labor trafficking prosecutions related to ongoing online scam operations cases; however, authorities reported only one conviction in these cases. Courts sentenced traffickers to penalties ranging from less than six months to not more than 10 years in prison. Authorities did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of employees of the Taiwan authorities complicit in human trafficking crimes. As in prior years, law enforcement bodies and court authorities maintained disparate statistical records on trafficking cases and prosecutors or judges could add more defendants when investigating or hearing cases; as such, the number of trafficking indictments, prosecutions, convictions, and sentences – including those processed through appeals in multiple court systems – may have been higher than reported.

The High Prosecutor’s Office issued a circular to administrative offices including FA and the Ministry of Health and Welfare on the legal responsibility of employers and their representatives to prevent forced labor in supply chains, and the NIA issued a circular to judicial police agencies on accountability measures for holding accountable employers found in violation of the law during human trafficking investigations. During the reporting period, local prosecutor offices investigated four cases of suspected criminal activity tied to forced labor by commercial entities, all four were still under investigation at the end of the reporting period.

Authorities stated the high turnover rate of law enforcement officers resulted in knowledge gaps on human trafficking. Taiwan authorities provided training to law enforcement officers, prosecutors, public defenders, judges, officials including from FA, MOL, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Welfare, and military personnel on January 2024 amendments to the HTPCA, investigation and prosecution of trafficking crimes, improving trafficking case communication and coordination across agencies, sexual exploitation of children, maritime forced labor, and transnational law enforcement cooperation. Taiwan authorities also signed a new immigration information sharing and cooperation MOU with the Government of Japan.

Authorities noted bureaucratic hierarchies and difficulties collecting evidence at sea impeded timely law enforcement response in maritime trafficking cases, allowing some alleged perpetrators to flee before the competent authorities could begin formal investigations. The Executive Yuan, the executive branch of the Taiwan authorities, maintained an “Action Plan for Fisheries and Human Rights” for 2022-2025; however, it did not provide FA inspectors the authority to conduct formal labor inspections and impose legal consequences. Civil society groups continued to note systemic shortcomings in Taiwan’s maritime anti-trafficking law enforcement: the use of informal mediation of cases with forced labor indicators discouraged the formal prosecution of labor trafficking cases; and authorities did not adequately investigate or prosecute NGO-reported cases of potential maritime forced labor.

Authorities increased protection efforts, but implementation of monitoring and referral procedures remained insufficient to adequately identify and provide services to forced labor victims among the foreign crewmembers aboard Taiwan-flagged and -owned and Taiwan-flagged, foreign-owned fishing vessels.

In 2024, authorities identified 249 trafficking victims (101 exploited in sex trafficking and 148 in forced labor; including 109 foreign nationals), compared with identifying 282 victims in 2023 (116 exploited in sex trafficking and 166 in forced labor). This decrease in victim identification was in part due to the large number of victims from Taiwan identified in 2022 and 2023 following repatriation from exploitation in online scam compounds in Cambodia; during 2024, approximately 44 individuals were repatriated from Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand to Taiwan, authorities did not report if any were formally identified as trafficking victims. NIA directed officers to take statements from undocumented and overstayed migrants who had been victims of crime; this resulted in the identification of 58 foreign trafficking victims, an increase from eight in 2023. The 101 sex trafficking victims identified included 30 women, 12 boys, and 59 girls; 27 of these victims were foreign nationals from Burma, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. The 148 labor trafficking victims included 85 men and 49 women, nine boys, and five girls; 82 of whom were foreign nationals from India, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Kenya, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Authorities reported screening 129 migrants, including migrant workers on DWF vessels, for trafficking indicators; of these 28 were identified as sex trafficking victims, and 76 as forced labor victims.

Law enforcement authorities used standardized questions and evaluation forms when interviewing and referring potential trafficking victims. The NIA issued revisions to the “Principals for Victim Identification of Human Trafficking” to clarify two appendices causing confusion amongst law enforcement handling cases involving children. In response to complications causing delays in the victim identification process that arose during implementation of the NIA’s “Assistance Program for the Identification of Suspected Human Trafficking Cases” aimed at facilitating the participation of social workers and other relevant official, civil society, and NGO professionals in law enforcement efforts to improve the victim identification process and protect the rights of potential victims, NIA revised the program and issued additional guidance.

NGOs reported Taiwan authorities continued to be less proactive in identifying victims of forced labor than victims of sex trafficking due to forced labor definitional ambiguities in the HTPCA and the Labor Standards Act. By law, responsibility for victim identification fell under the purview of the four judicial police agencies – National Police Agency (NPA), NIA, MOJ Investigation Bureau, and Coast Guard Administration – and required other entities with investigative authority – including MOL and FA – to immediately transfer cases to judicial police for victim identification once human trafficking elements were suspected. The HTPCA mandated a remedy mechanism providing for screened individuals to formally submit a written objection to authorities if they disagreed with the identification results, and stipulated suspected victims could not be deported until identification procedures were concluded and the required period for identification objections to be lodged had passed. Authorities and NGOs also noted police and court personnel perceiving cases as labor disputes rather than trafficking crimes continued to hinder effective identification, investigation, and prosecution of labor trafficking cases. Ambiguities in HTPCA provisions reportedly complicated implementation in cases where victims received some financial compensation.

MOL and NIA continued to fund civil society organizations to provide protection services to trafficking victims as outlined under the HTPCA. MOL maintained its annual budget for overall victim protection at 10 million NT ($305,730) – the same as in 2023; authorities used 10 million NT ($305,730) of this funding to provide a 500 NT ($15) daily stipend to foreign victims staying in 23 MOL-operated shelters for meals, lodging, and other necessities. NIA allocated 13.18 million NT ($402,950) for operation of two shelters for foreign trafficking victims, a decrease from 23.9 million NT ($730,690) allocated in 2023; these shelters had approximately 84 beds for only women victims (an increase from 60 beds in 2023). FA was also responsible for providing emergency housing for foreign fishers who were “suspected of being subjected to forced labor,” and contracted an NGO to provide shelter to these individuals and allocated one million NT ($30,570) for subsidies of 500 NT ($15) per potential victim to cover shelter placement expenses; this shelter had 36 beds and could accommodate both men and women. Additionally, MOL operated 22 and NIA operated two “resettlement institutions,” through which social workers reportedly provided psychiatric counseling and other consultative services. Citing security concerns, authorities limited shelter access for victims from China to NIA shelters, while other foreign nationals could access a wider array of NGO shelter services. NGOs reported there were few shelter services available for male victims, and some shelters lacked access for victims with mobility disabilities. Victims from Taiwan generally preferred to return to their homes rather than stay in shelters, and foreign victims with work visas could choose to be resettled locally instead of placed in shelters; however, NGOs reported it was more difficult for victims who lived outside shelters to access victim services and MOL or other stipends. The CYSEPA required that child victims in need of shelter be placed in child and juvenile welfare institutions, foster homes, halfway schools, or other appropriate medical and educational institutions with schooling and other essential services. The HTPCA allowed for “community-style resettlement services,” permitting foreign and potential victims to choose residence alternatives to shelter placement and still receive trafficking victim services, including safety deposits and rent for living outside shelters, and transfer of welfare resources.

In 2024, Taiwan authorities reported referring a total of 279 identified and potential victims to protection services, 94 of whom were foreign nationals, including 189 sex trafficking victims and 90 forced labor victims (compared with 182 referrals in 2023). Authorities provided shelter services to 144 victims, and other forms of safe housing, like hotels, to 135 victims. NIA shelters provided both male and female trafficking victims with medical and psychological services; legal counseling; accompanied interviews; vocational training and other employment assistance services; subsidies for economic needs including housing, unemployment benefits, and transportation; language interpretation; residency assistance; and repatriation assistance. Authorities offered these services to trafficking victims in at least 5,311 instances, including 89 instances of medical assistance, 3,301 instances of mental health and psychosocial support, 519 instances of interpretation assistance, 130 instances of legal aid, 87 instances of financial subsidies, and 1,050 instances of employment assistance and education support; an increase compared with 2,002 instances of service provision in 2023. Also included among these services, authorities reported granting foreign victims 98 one-year residence permits in 2024 under the amended HTPCA (compared with 36 new temporary residence permits, 17 renewals, and 74 temporary work permits under the previous act in 2023). NIA officials worked with shelter organizations to facilitate the repatriation of 37 foreign trafficking victims in 2024 (compared with 22 in 2023). Victim identification policy required formal identification be conducted in Taiwan, so potential Taiwan victims overseas were repatriated prior to being identified as victims. NIA authorities stationed in Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam cooperated with foreign immigration agencies and local NGOs to assist and repatriate potential Taiwan victims in Southeast Asia. Authorities maintained two projects to assist potential Taiwan victims in Cambodia and provided financial assistance to potential victims in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand to cover return flights, visa fees, insurance fees, and daily expenses.

Authorities encouraged victims to participate in criminal investigations of traffickers by conducting video interviews and allowing them to provide written statements for trials, providing resettlement services, providing witness protection, and providing social workers to accompany victim witness to court, as well as prohibiting the public release of victims’ names, identifiable personal information, and photos. The HTPCA also provided protections for victims’ privacy and confidentiality, witness protection, and allowances for social workers and other advocates to accompany victims to court. The law imposed fines of 60,000 to 600,000 NT ($1,830 to $18,340) on individuals found to have publicly reported victims’ names or other identifiable information. In January 2025, authorities exacted the Whistleblower Protection Act to protect the rights of public and private whistleblowers and specifically listed violations of the HTPCA as illegal activities of significant public interest covered by the Act, however this law was not yet in effect at the end of the reporting period. Trafficking victims could apply for four types of subsidies that were funded by confiscated criminal proceeds of human trafficking crimes via the “Human Trafficking Victim Assistance Fund.” Two of these subsidies were available for foreign victims without work visas to encourage them to remain in or return to Taiwan to assist with investigations and prosecutions by providing international travel and living expenses, but no victims requested and received these subsidies in 2024; the other two subsidies for “condolence money” and “unemployment benefits” were available to domestic and foreign victims, and during 2024, NIA issued 3,000 NT ($92) condolence money payments to 38 victims totaling 114,000 NT ($3,490) and 14,000 NT ($430) unemployment benefits payments to 26 victims totaling 364,000 NT ($11,130). The law permitted victims to obtain compensation through out-of-court settlements or file civil suits against traffickers but required them to provide all relevant evidence themselves. In 2024, a court ordered defendants pay one survivor plaintiff 400,000 NT ($12,230) in a civil trafficking suit, and four foreign survivors received a total of 120,650 NT ($3,690) from their traffickers following civil mediation (compared to no victims receiving restitution in 2023 or 2022).

FA maintained guidelines on victim identification and law enforcement notification procedures for inspections of fishing vessels operating in both DWF and in Taiwan-administered waters; these included trafficking indicator questionnaires for migrant fishermen and senior vessel crew to detect cases of debt-based coercion, restricted freedom of movement, wage irregularities, physical abuse, retention of travel and identity documents, and other such forced labor indicators. They also outlined specific responsibilities among relevant agencies for the proper detection and referral of potential trafficking cases to police, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and/or foreign government counterpart agencies, depending on available evidence. According to NGO observers, some migrant fishermen were hesitant to relay their experiences to FA or coast guard interviewers due to fear of reprisal and concerns about personal safety; fishermen often relied on collective action to raise concerns as a means of preventing retaliation by captains. Observers also reported FA did not proactively screen migrant fishers seeking to transfer vessels or return home, despite high prevalence of exploitative working conditions driving these requests, and instead prioritized deportations of these workers.

Taiwan law provided victims immunity for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked. Authorities reportedly screened individuals initially detained for commercial sex acts and positively identified victims in the process. Civil society contacts reported limited or inconsistent understanding of trafficking among front-line law enforcement officers and judges, compounded by high turnover impacting institutional memory, continued to constrain victims’ access to protective care while leaving them vulnerable to temporary detention, fines, and jail time.

Authorities maintained efforts to prevent trafficking.

Taiwan continued implementation of the “2023-2024 Anti-Exploitation Action Plan” that outlined steps to prevent sex trafficking and forced labor among vulnerable groups, enhance protections for Taiwan victims, and improve educational training of officials to improve the quality of prosecutions. It also approved an updated “2025-2026 Anti-Exploitation Action Plan” in January 2025, following consultation with civil society.” A cabinet-level minister-without-portfolio implemented the action plan and oversaw an interagency working group that met four times in 2024. The working group maintained two subgroups – one on domestic workers and another on migrant fishermen; the subgroups included participation from NGOs and academics. FA continued implementation of the Action Plan for Fisheries and Human Rights and published a 2024 Implementation Progress Report in March 2025. Authorities reported spending 327 million NT ($10 million) during 2024 of the 1.03 billion NT ($31.49 million) allocated for the plan’s implementation. Various agencies continued to fund advertisements, public service announcements, and other materials on trafficking, and held trainings and workshops for officials, private sector professionals, the public, and vulnerable populations, including youth, students, foreign workers, and fishing sector workers, with at least 13.77 million NT ($420,990) allocated for these efforts.

NPA and NIA each ran hotlines – both operated 24 hours year round and offered Mandarin and English language services. NIA also added a human trafficking reporting mechanism to their official website. The Coast Guard Administration also maintained an emergency reporting phone line; Coast Guard investigators could initiate investigations if they received calls on potential trafficking crimes. MOL maintained a separate 24-hour migrant worker hotline offering Mandarin, English, Thai, Bahasa, and Vietnamese language services; FA authorities reported resolving 46 cases resulting from calls to the MOL hotline and recovered $48,000 in wages. Calls to the NPA, NIA and MOL hotline systems resulted in the identification of 58 trafficking victims (compared with at least 20 victims identified from calls received and investigated in 2023). Observers noted crewmembers aboard vessels in DWF had difficulties accessing the MOL hotline due to limited awareness of its existence, lack of cellular service and internet connectivity in remote maritime areas, and restrictions on their communication imposed by senior vessel crew. Migrant fishermen also reported significant lags in hotline response times, that some hotline staff were unhelpful or even dismissive of workers’ complaints, and that they hesitated to use the hotline due to fears of retaliation, citing that hotline staff had at times relayed complaints directly back to recruitment agencies and senior vessel crew. MOL maintained a communications app to share information with migrant workers in Taiwan and provide online assistance. FA maintained a Taiwan Foreign Crew Interactive Service Platform to provide vessel information, and a reporting channel dedicated to migrant fishers; FA reported receiving 127 total complaints to this platform, of which one was reported as a suspected trafficking case. MOJ funded a free protection service hotline operated by a victim support association to provide legal assistance and related services for trafficking victims and their families.

Taiwan maintained a broker evaluation system that could revoke the business licenses of low-scoring brokerage firms and impose fines for certain violations, including imposition of illegal fees, and FA used a similar evaluation system to conduct annual reviews. Civil society observers continued to assert the evaluation system could not be sufficiently objective or accurate in detecting abuses, including forced labor, because the authorities provided brokers with advance notification prior to inspections, and because evaluators did not contact migrant fishermen to verify the information presented by recruitment agencies. Some recruitment agencies falsified worker data during self-evaluations and voluntarily shut down their operations and re-opened under a different agency name and license. MOL conducted 2,738 inspections of recruitment brokers in 2024 (compared with 2,774 in 2023), and identified 13 cases of brokers overcharging migrant workers fees in 2024, resulting in 4.25 million NT ($129,930) in fines, and 14 cases of unauthorized employment activities wherein brokers were operating without MOL permits. FA continued to commission a third-party verification agency to inspect brokers hiring migrant fishers overseas, and Taiwan-flagged vessels operating in foreign ports. FA inspectors and third-party agents conducted 47 inspections of brokers and conducted unannounced inspections on 774 fishing vessels, including 566 at domestic ports and 206 at foreign ports; FA interviewed 6,165 crewmembers. This compared with 55 inspections of brokers and 676 unannounced vessel inspections – 448 at domestic ports, 192 at foreign ports, and 36 on the high seas, interviewing a total of 3,791 crew – in 2023. Inspectors uncovered violations by five vessels relating to document retention, four vessels and four brokers relating to contract issues, 96 vessels for excessive overtime, five vessels to mistreatment of crewmembers, and 14 vessels and 14 brokers for wage discrepancies (compared with 236 violations in 2023). Officials issued the majority of violators with official notices to guide improvement (140 notices); only one of these wage discrepancy cases resulted in administrative fines, totaling 250,000 NT ($7,640), and a vessel license suspension. The authorities required vessel owners or brokers to record videos of mandatory discussions informing all foreign crewmembers of their basic rights prior to signing employment contracts; the FA randomly selected 55 labor brokers to evaluate compliance. NGOs continued to report labor inspections by MOL and FA were inadequate, that authorities did not thoroughly regulate or effectively inspect recruitment brokers, and that officials perceived forced labor as a separate and lesser crime from labor trafficking, allowing brokers to subject migrant workers to debt bondage and other abuses with impunity. Observers also reported labor brokers were shielded from official scrutiny because they wielded significant social and economic power over Taiwan’s political elite. Additionally, civil society reported it was common for MOL employees to leave official positions for more lucrative jobs with labor brokers.

Taiwan’s labor laws permitted companies to outsource many human resources responsibilities, resulting in companies relying on the labor brokers also supplying them with migrant workers to provide these services free of charge to the hiring company. Observers reported this enabled abuse by labor brokers, many of whom instead passed these expenses on to workers by charging monthly service fees and operated lending companies. Existing HTPCA provisions protected workers from having to remit “unreasonable payments of debt” to brokers or supervisors; observers asserted these provisions were too vague to effectively prevent debt-based coercion. The DHSC allowed employers to hire foreign workers without utilizing brokers who may charge illegally excessive fees but did not report how many did so during the year. Authorities continued to operate international airport service counters and foreign-worker service stations around Taiwan to assist foreign workers and educate them on their rights. MOL could impose fines between 60,000 NT and 300,000 NT ($1,830-$9,170) for employers who illegally docked migrant workers’ pay; there were 25 cases in which local authorities fined employers for illegally docking migrant workers’ pay.

Observers reported legislation preventing foreign workers from changing jobs mid-contract except in certain cases, such as in the event of an employer’s death or in cases in which workers alleged abuse by the employer, increased workers vulnerabilities to exploitation; the burden of establishing proof of abuse was placed on the worker and migrant workers immigration status were tied to their employment contracts. Authorities reported there were 97,975 migrant workers previously employed in sectors including manufacturing, construction, fishing, agriculture, domestic labor and others, whose whereabouts were unknown as of March 2025. NGOs and authorities continued to stress the need for Taiwan to pass a domestic worker protection bill that would mandate hours of rest, days off, and annual leave. The Employment Services Act required employment agencies to report abuses their clients committed against migrant workers – especially foreign household caregivers – or face severe fines. It also banned employers from retaining passports, work permits, or any identity documents of migrant domestic workers and fishermen without their consent. However, civil society groups continued to argue the law was insufficient to deter forced labor, as employers were reportedly easily able to coerce migrant workers into “voluntarily” handing over their identity documentation. NGOs continued to call for legislation to bring migrant domestic workers under the broader protections and jurisdictions outlined in Taiwan’s Labor Standards Act to enhance relevant protections.

Authorities continued to invite civil society representatives to observe FA interviews of migrant fishermen onboard some vessels in local ports; NGOs continued to observe some practices that discouraged victims from reporting abuses, including interviews conducted in close proximity to senior vessel crew. Only 11 of the 32 international ports authorized for use by Taiwan DWF vessels had assigned FA inspectors (an increase from seven in 2023), and observers noted these personnel operated under mandates largely limited to fish catch inspection and the detection of environmental abuses, rather than labor abuses. Civil society groups continued to urge FA to position more inspectors at all authorized overseas ports; reduce the number of ports authorized to receive Taiwan-flagged vessels; require all high-risk vessels to return to ports in Taiwan for unloading and inspections; mandate the availability of wi-fi on board all vessels for use by all crew, including while at sea, and penalize non-compliance; and implement electronic monitoring systems for all Taiwan-owned and/or Taiwan-flagged fishing vessels including remote sensors and CCTV.

Taiwan’s Labor Standards Act did not protect fishing workers hired to work aboard DWF vessels, who instead fell under the jurisdiction of FA. Taiwan continued to divide responsibility for foreign fishermen between MOL, which oversaw Taiwan DWF fishermen as well as Taiwan and migrant workers employed in coastal and offshore fishing, and FA, which oversaw only foreign migrant workers in the DWF; this disparity continued to hinder the coordination necessary to prosecute maritime forced labor cases and imposed unequal access to labor protections for DWF migrant workers. Civil society groups noted overlapping mandates and procedural gaps between MOL and FA continued to hinder effective oversight of labor conditions in the fishing industry, particularly because FA inspectors did not have the legal authority to carry out labor inspections or subsequently enforce Taiwan labor laws. FA maintained regulations that standardized fishing workers’ employment contracts, set a minimum wage with direct payment options, provided medical and life insurance, unified working hours and rest time, and established access to new complaint mechanisms. However, NGOs noted the minimum compensation established in these regulations was below Taiwan’s broader minimum wage, and senior vessel crew continued to delay or withhold salary remittance in violation of contractual pay schedules, leaving some foreign fishing workers vulnerable to debt-based coercion. Civil society organizations called for the elimination of all such worker-paid fees and instead advocated for their imposition on the employers of seafarers and land-based migrant workers alike. They also described FA’s purview over Taiwan fishermen’s associations – which played a role in the approval of labor recruitment systems – as a possible conflict of interest. Observers reported insufficient FA staffing and oversight mechanisms in DWF allowed forced labor and other abuses. In December 2024, FA submitted a draft implementation act to guide application of standards for fishing working conditions in line with the ILO Work in Fishing Convention (C188) to the Executive Yuan for review and adoption. FA distributed multilingual cards containing information on worker rights and hotline numbers to foreign crewmembers during unannounced inspections of ships docking at certain foreign ports; NGOs reported the utility of these cards was limited by the inability of DWF migrant workers to make calls from the high seas.

Regulations required Taiwan-authorized labor agents to work solely with legally authorized foreign brokers. Civil society observers noted some regulations, including those requiring Taiwan-flagged DWFs obtain registration numbers and log vessel names and crew lists with FA, did not apply to Taiwan-owned, foreign-flagged vessels and stressed increasing the transparency of the vessel monitoring system – particularly by publishing information on vessel ownership and operating location – would significantly improve anti-trafficking coordination between the authorities and maritime labor NGOs.

The HTPCA included provisions prohibiting persons or companies convicted of human trafficking crimes from participating in public procurement processes, being awarded public contracts, or receiving work as a subcontractor on a public procurement contact for five years. Authorities commissioned a research project on establishing a mechanism for handling forced labor in supply chains with the purpose of informing future amendments to the HTPCA. Taiwan maintained bilateral migrant labor recruitment MOUs with Indonesia and the Philippines, and signed a new MOU with India in 2024, however, these MOUs did not apply to foreign workers in the DWF; Taiwan also maintained trafficking MOUs with 22 foreign countries. Some bilateral arrangements did not outline adequate screening for forced labor aboard Taiwan-owned and -flagged or Taiwan-owned, foreign-flagged fishing vessels docking at certain designated foreign vessel harbor areas. Authorities investigated no cases of foreign nationals for suspected CYSEPA violations in 2024 (compared with seven investigations in 2023). Taiwan’s laws criminalized sexual exploitation of children by Taiwan passport holders traveling abroad, but authorities did not investigate any cases during 2024 (the same as 2023). Authorities made efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts, including through Tourism Bureau awareness campaigns and industry training sessions.

Trafficking affects all communities. This section summarizes Taiwan authorities and civil society reporting on the nature and scope of trafficking over the last five years. Human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Taiwan, and traffickers exploit victims from Taiwan abroad. Traffickers subject foreign men and women to forced labor and sex trafficking in Taiwan, and they subject local men and women to forced labor and local women and children to sex trafficking. Traffickers also subject people from Taiwan to forced labor in some European countries. Taiwan traffickers increasingly use the internet, smartphone applications, livestreaming, and other online technologies to conduct recruitment activities, often targeting child victims, and to mask their identities from law enforcement. Traffickers lure women from China and Southeast Asian countries to Taiwan through fraudulent marriages and deceptive employment offers for purposes of sex trafficking.

Many trafficking victims are migrant workers from Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and, to a lesser extent, China, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka. Vietnamese, Indonesian, and Thai nationals continue to represent most foreign sex trafficking and forced labor victims in Taiwan. Taiwan is host to more than 800,000 foreign workers, most of whom are hired in their home countries through recruitment agencies and brokers – including from Taiwan – to work in manufacturing (55.6 percent); construction (4 percent); agriculture, forestry, fishing and animal husbandry (2.4 percent), human health and social work activities (1.9 percent); and in other service activities, including as home caregivers and domestic workers (24 percent). Foreign brokers often require migrant workers to pay exorbitantly high recruitment fees and deposits, ranging as high as $1,500 for Filipino workers, $4,500 for Thai and Indonesian workers, and $6,000 for Vietnamese workers. As a result, some foreign workers incur substantial debts, which brokers or employers use as tools of coercion to force workers into debt bondage. Taiwan law does not prohibit recruitment fees charged abroad, and observers report Taiwan’s labor brokers receive substantial kick-backs from foreign recruiters; observers also allege that at times brokers use migrant workers as money mules to move cash to Taiwan-based brokers. After recruitment fee and guaranteed deposit repayments are garnished from their wages, many foreign workers in Taiwan earn significantly less than the minimum wage. Taiwan labor brokers often charge migrant workers additional, recurring monthly service fees (often $50-$60) for human resource services rendered by the broker in place of these services being covered by employers; migrant workers often report receiving no discernable benefit or service from paying these fees. Migrant workers are further at risk of debt bondage because many Taiwan-based brokers are also lending companies, creating a cyclical system whereby brokers charge fees and then offer workers loans through their lending services. Taiwan-based brokers often provide human resource services to hiring companies, including building and managing migrant worker dormitories, and may pay companies to hire their workers, creating a situation where workers are de facto paying companies to be placed in jobs through a broker. Employers also often subject migrant workers to abuses indicative of forced labor, including but not limited to document retention, restriction of movement, abusive and unsanitary living conditions, withholding of wages, and imposition of a wage fine as punishment for mistakes at work. Legislation restricts the ability of foreign workers to change employers mid-contract, and foreign workers who leave their contracted positions – more than 55,000 at any given time – are at particularly high risk of trafficking because they lose their immigration status and access to formal sector employment; some of them initially flee due to abusive work conditions, including forced labor. Domestic workers and home caregivers are also especially vulnerable to exploitation, since they often live in their employers’ residences, making it difficult to monitor their working and living conditions. One NGO survey found that employers withheld travel and identity documents of 90 percent of all migrant domestic caregivers, constituting a significant freedom of movement concern. Brokers in Taiwan sometimes assist employers in forcibly deporting “problematic” foreign employees should they complain, enabling brokers to fill the empty positions with new foreign workers facing continued debt-based coercion. Some traffickers use Indonesian-owned stores in Taiwan as illegal remittance channels, confining Indonesian workers and subjecting them to sex trafficking. Traffickers reportedly take advantage of relaxed visa requirements under Taiwan’s “New Southbound Policy” to lure Southeast Asian students and tourists to Taiwan and subject them to forced labor and sex trafficking. For-profit universities in Taiwan use third party recruitment agents to recruit foreign students – including from Indonesia, Eswatini, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Vietnam – to fill enrollment gaps and subsequently place them into exploitative labor conditions under the pretense of educational opportunities. Some students are unaware of the work component prior to arrival, and others are informed they are permitted to work up to 20 hours per week under their student visas, but once they arrive, brokers and university recruiters demand travel fees and tuition, and place them in farm and factory jobs – often in remote areas – where they reportedly experience contract switching, excessive working hours, and poor living conditions contrary to their original agreements.

Indonesian, Filipino, and Vietnamese, and Chinese national fishermen working on Taiwan-owned and -flagged and Taiwan- owned, foreign-flagged fishing vessels have experienced non- or under-payment of wages, long working hours, physical abuse, lack of food or medical care, denial of sleep, substandard safety equipment, and poor living conditions while indebted to complex, multinational brokerage networks through the continued imposition of recruitment fees and deposits. Migrant fishermen have reported senior crewmembers employ such coercive tactics as threats of physical violence, beatings, withholding of food and water, retention of identity documents, wage deductions, and non-contractual compulsory sharing of vessel operational costs to retain their labor. These abuses are particularly prevalent in Taiwan’s DWF, comprising more than 2,000 Taiwan-owned and -flagged fishing vessels, and Taiwan-owned, foreign-flagged fishing vessels operating thousands of miles from Taiwan and without adequate oversight. According to FA estimates, approximately 20,800 migrants work onboard DWF vessels –13,800 from Indonesia, 5,000 from the Philippines, 1,000 from Vietnam, 800 from China, and 200 from other Southeast Asian countries – and approximately 12,300 work on coastal and offshore fishing vessels – 9,500 from Indonesia, 1,200 from the Philippines, 1,300 from other Southeast Asian countries, and 300 from China. Senior crew force migrant workers to fish illegal stock, including threatened, endangered, and protected species, placing them at higher risk of criminal repercussions. Many ships remain at sea for years at a time, selectively disabling their transponders and stopping at “refrigeration mother ships” or remote, uninhabited islands to resupply, transfer victims to other ships, and offload illegally caught fish while avoiding detection by law enforcement. Vessel owners and operators take advantage of maritime jurisdictional complexities and ambiguities to perpetrate these crimes with relative impunity; they also frequently change their fishing vessels’ names and nationalities of registry to evade detection by law enforcement. Some migrant fishermen subjected to forced labor onboard international fishing vessels transit Taiwanese ports, especially Kaohsiung, en route to other maritime locations. Some Taiwan-based labor brokerage firms reportedly supply fishing vessels operating under the auspices of China’s DWF – which is highly vulnerable to human trafficking and labor exploitation – with migrant workers as well. Traffickers in several European countries lure men and women from Taiwan with false promises of high-paying employment opportunities and then subject them to illegal confinement and forced criminality in telephone scams.

Traffickers subject people from Taiwan to forced criminality in online scam operations run by Chinese national-operated crime syndicates in centers located primarily in Cambodia, but also in other Southeast Asian countries including Burma, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and increasingly other countries around the world, including Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates. Taiwan criminal organizations and Chinese national-operated crime syndicates use the internet and social media to fraudulently recruit men, women, and children from Taiwan, for high-paying technical jobs abroad and force them to engage in online gambling, internet, cryptocurrency, and telephone scams, primarily in a system of large commercial compounds in these countries. Traffickers often lure Taiwan victims to Thailand with false job offers and transport them across the border into Cambodia, Burma, and Laos. Taiwan victims have included individuals from indigenous ethnic minorities, individuals with disabilities, and members of single-parent families, who were potentially more vulnerable to exploitation due to economic disadvantages. During the reporting period, some Southeast Asia countries deported scam operation suspects from Taiwan, without screening them as potential trafficking victims, to China where they were likely not screened for trafficking.