This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Heart.
Taichung Metropolis, Taiwan – Bernard retains a low profile.
Heading to work on the streets of Taiwan, the 45-year-old Filipino migrant employee dodges glances and infrequently checks his face masks to ensure his look is hid.
To cover his accent, he typically speaks in a near-whisper.
Typically, he declines invites to social events from his fellow countrymen, frightened {that a} “Judas” amongst them may report him to the authorities.
Employed at one in every of Taiwan’s many electronics factories, Bernard got here to the island legally in 2016.
However since June 2024, he has been amongst Taiwan’s rising inhabitants of undocumented staff. He blames his dealer, a non-public employment agent to which migrants are often assigned, for his present predicament.
Bernard’s dealer tried to confiscate his passport, he stated, then tried to persuade him to resign and forgo severance funds from his employer.
He refused each instances, he stated, inflicting a rift between them.
“They [brokers] solely communicate to you once they come to gather funds or once they need to trick you,” Bernard, who requested to make use of a pseudonym out of concern of repercussions, instructed Al Jazeera.
Brokers in Taiwan take a minimize of their shoppers’ wages and have important affect over their circumstances and job prospects, making their relationships vulnerable to abuse.
When Bernard’s contract expired in 2022, he stated, his dealer blacklisted him amongst different employers.
Determined to help his daughter’s training within the Philippines, Bernard ditched his dealer and determined to overstay his visa to work odd building jobs, he stated.
As of late, he stated, he feels “like a hen in a cage”.
In public, Bernard wouldn’t even utter the phrase “undocumented” in any language, solely gesturing together with his fingers that he ran away.
Taiwan’s undocumented workforce is rising quick.
The variety of unaccounted-for migrants on the island has doubled within the final 4 years, reaching 90,000 this January, based on the Ministry of Labor.
Regardless of Taiwan’s picture as one of many area’s uncommon liberal democracies, a rising variety of Southeast Asian migrant staff are dwelling beneath the fixed menace of deportation and with out entry to social providers.
Taiwan institutionalised its dealer system in 1992 in a bid to streamline labour recruitment.
Brokers affect nearly each facet of a migrant employee’s life, from the place they reside, to their meals, to the phrases of their employment contracts, and even how they entry public providers.
Migrant rights advocates say it’s exactly this degree of management that’s prompting massive numbers of staff to flee their workplaces.
Over a 3rd of all complaints made by migrants to the Ministry of Labor are broker-related, based on official information.
As of January 2025, Vietnamese made up the largest share of the undocumented at 57,611, adopted by Indonesians at 28,363, and Filipinos at 2,750.
Pleasure Tajonera, a Catholic priest who runs the Ugnayan Heart, a migrant shelter in Taichung Metropolis, stated the Taiwanese authorities has taken a lax method to the difficulty.
“The system permits the brokers an influence for use to the drawback of migrants,” Tajonera instructed Al Jazeera.
“In the meantime, employers play harmless.”
Brokers sometimes cost migrants a month-to-month service price of $50 to $60, and in addition gather charges for job transfers, hospital insurance coverage, go away, and many of the mandatory documentation to work in Taiwan.
In some circumstances, they impose age limits for sure jobs.
Tajonera stated many undocumented staff can really earn extra with out a dealer, “however you then lose all social protections and medical insurance. It’s not that they need to run away. It’s their state of affairs, they will’t take it any extra.”
‘Shameless and silly’
Taiwan’s Labor Ministry stated in an announcement that the rise in undocumented migrants was pushed by pandemic-related disruption to deportations.
It stated it has taken varied steps to enhance circumstances for migrant works, together with elevating the minimal wage, conducting common inspections of recruitment businesses, introducing a brand new suspension mechanism for businesses with excessive charges of absconding staff, and inspiring labour-sending international locations to scale back company charges.
“By means of pre-employment orientation for industrial migrant staff and one-stop orientation classes for family caregivers, the ministry goals to reinforce staff’ consciousness of authorized necessities, inform them of the dangers and penalties of going lacking, and guarantee employers fulfill their administration obligations,” the ministry stated.
Nonetheless, since final yr, the Taiwanese authorities has additionally elevated the most fines for migrants caught overstaying their visas from $330 to $1,657.
Lennon Ying-Da Wang, director of the general public migrant shelter Serve the Folks Affiliation, known as the federal government’s transfer to extend penalties “shameless and silly”.
“As a substitute of addressing the explanations for operating away, it will simply forestall folks from surrendering,” he instructed Al Jazeera.
Wang stated an absence of protections, significantly for these working in childcare and fisheries, is the important thing motive why many migrants abscond from their workplaces.
Neither business is topic to Taiwan’s month-to-month minimal wage of $944, based on Taiwan’s Labor Requirements Act.
Wang stated migrants in follow typically obtain half that quantity minus deductions by brokers.
“Migrants simply need a respectable wage,” Wang stated. “However there’s an unstated rule amongst some brokers to not rent migrant staff who ask for assist from shelters. That forces them to run away.”
Regardless of his sympathies, Wang, because the director of a state-funded facility, is just not allowed to absorb migrants who’ve absconded from their employers as they’re topic to deportation.
On a quiet, nondescript street on the fringe of Taipei lies Concord Dwelling, an NGO catering to undocumented younger moms and kids.
Whereas the girls and youngsters who keep at Concord Dwelling can’t be deported for humanitarian causes, the state is just not obligated to shoulder the prices of their care or medical wants.
Concord Dwelling, which has taken in additional than 1,600 kids over the previous twenty years, has just lately seen a pointy uptick in minors coming by means of its doorways, founder Nicole Yang stated.
“Final yr, we had about 110 new youngsters. By April this yr, we’ve already obtained 140,” Yang instructed Al Jazeera.
“We additionally take care of 300 others who reside at dwelling whereas their mom works.”
Li-Chuan Liuhuang, a labour knowledgeable at Nationwide Chung Cheng College, stated that whereas the dealer system shall be troublesome to “uproot instantly”, the federal government might enhance oversight by “making the recruitment process and value construction extra clear”.
In Lishan, a mountainous space of Taichung, a whole lot of undocumented Southeast Asians choose peaches, pears and cabbages for native landowners. The presence of runaway migrants, lots of whom fled fishing trawlers, is just not solely tolerated however relied upon for the harvest.
Liuhuang stated she want to see such migrants being allowed to work on farms with correct labour protections, however she believes this could not be simple for the general public to just accept.
“The federal government should commit extra efforts for this sort of dialogue,” she instructed Al Jazeera.
Mary, who requested to make use of a pseudonym, stated she absconded from her job as a childcare employee to work illegally at varied mountain farms after changing into annoyed at incomes lower than half the minimal wage and having her grievances ignored by her dealer.
Sitting beside a cabbage patch, Mary, 46, stated she all the time felt anxious across the police within the metropolis.
However in Lishan the principles are totally different, she stated, as landowners have an unwritten settlement with the authorities in regards to the runaways.
“There’s no manner the boss doesn’t have connections with the police. He all the time is aware of once they come and tells us to not exit,” she instructed Al Jazeera.
Even so, there is no such thing as a assure of avoiding mistreatment within the mountains.
After the harvest, employers generally withhold funds, threatening anybody who complains with deportation, Mary stated.
“If I complain that the boss doesn’t give me the wage, I’ll get reported. Who will assist me?” she stated.
