Kaohsiung, Taiwan – Surrounded by his bandmates, Rudi takes the stage in the southern Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung. As he looks out at the crowd, his bandmates begin to play, sending the audience into a frenzy of excitement.
“Silenced by threats, here we stand against this system of slavery,” Rudi sings, as the crowd forms a mosh pit, chanting along with him. Beside him, a banner hanging between two microphones reads: “Immigrant workers have the right to have a voice.”
Originally from the city of Indramayu in West Java, Rudi had difficulty finding work in his home country. “It is difficult to find work in Indonesia, almost impossible,” he told Al Jazeera. “He didn't have any permanent job. I did everything I could”.
Rudi moved to Taiwan in 2015 to operate heavy machinery in a factory. Like many of the island's 768,000 immigrant workers, he was looking for employment and the opportunity to build a better life.
But the reality is often more complicated. While migrant workers earn more in Taiwan, many find themselves exploited, trapped in debt or facing physical and sexual abuse. In the face of this, many are fighting back, forming unions and NGOs and taking part in protests ranging from flash mob dancing to musical performances.
Rudi's band, Southern Riot, is made up of four Indonesian workers and was formed just three years ago. They already perform at Taiwan's largest annual music festival, MegaPort.
Mixing poetry and punk music, their protest songs criticize what they describe as the “slavery systems” that they say trap immigrants.
They also provide a space for their audience (who are also mostly migrant workers) to express themselves and escape from work life. “On stage I feel happy,” Rudi explained. “Our songs are like an expression of our feelings.”
Facing exploitation
Almost all workers come to Taiwan through an employment agency or intermediary, which immediately exposes them to exploitation.
“We have to pay them to bring us here,” Rudi said, referring to the “placement fees” charged by these brokers. “Then when we get to Taiwan, we have to pay too. They cut our salaries to pay the monthly fees.”
For many, these job placement fees can be up to $9,000, an almost insurmountable cost for migrant workers who come exclusively from less wealthy countries in Southeast Asia, explained Lennon Wang of Serve the People Association (SPA). a local NGO that focuses on the rights of migrant workers.
Originally from a rural farming family in northern Luzon Island, the Philippines, Ronalyn Asis had to pay about 120,000 Philippine pesos ($2,035) to cover the costs of her training, airfare and placement fees before she began working as a home caregiver in Taiwan in 2014.
While Asis was able to borrow money from his family, Lennon said many others are forced to seek private loans. These are usually provided by the employment agent themselves and can have high interest rates that can leave workers trapped in debt.
Their problems don't end when they arrive in Taiwan. Rudi explains that migrant workers are assigned more strenuous tasks and are expected to work harder than their local counterparts, while others are not paid their fair share. “Every aspect of our work is full of injustice,” he adds.
Many are expected to work beyond the limits of their contract or without adequate time off, Lennon said.
Asis was initially hired to care for an elderly member of a Taiwanese family. She then found that she was also expected to work as a domestic worker, cooking and cleaning for her employers. She was given just 10 hours of time off per month.
“I was initially very disappointed by the situation, but I felt that I was already tied to my employer and had no choice but to accept,” she said. “I had loans to pay, so I accepted it.”
Others are tricked into moving to Taiwan under false pretenses. When Asher and Jaali were contacted by an employment agent in Kenya, he promised them the chance to work as acrobats in a circus.
“The main reason I came to Taiwan was to act, make money, make a name for myself and support my family,” Asher explained. “But when I came here, things changed.”
Instead of taking action, Asher and Jaali were ordered to work on a farm, operating heavy machinery and spraying chemicals. Their employers took away their passports, so they were unable to leave and find other work.
They are currently involved in ongoing legal cases and have asked to be known only by pseudonyms so that their families do not find out what is happening.
Asher and Jaali are not alone. “Most migrant workers in Taiwan are at risk of forced labor and human trafficking,” Lennon said. In 2023, Walk Free, an NGO dedicated to eradicating slavery, estimated that about 40,000 people were living in modern slavery in Taiwan.
Feeling helpless
Even if they have not been trafficked, migrant workers can feel powerless against their employers.
Originally from a fishing community in Bulacan, just outside the Philippine capital Manila, Liezel Bartolome was excited to start working in Taiwan. She sent home up to half of what she earned to pay for her mother's medical care.
But when Bartolomé was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and began chemotherapy, her enthusiasm faded. “I didn’t want my mother to worry about my condition,” she explained through tears. “I always pretended that I was fine, that I was happy.”
Although her employers initially agreed to help cover her medical care and promised she could continue working for them, once she left the hospital they tried to fire her.
“When I was discharged from the hospital and returned home, my agent was there to terminate my contract,” he said.
While terminating a contract in this way is illegal, many migrant workers remain unaware of their rights, according to NGOs, exacerbating the power imbalance between employers and workers.
For home carers, who often live in their employer's home and are therefore dependent on them for income and a roof over their heads, the imbalance is even more pronounced.
When Asis told her employers she was pregnant, they gave her 24 hours' notice, leaving her without a source of income and homeless. Seven months pregnant, she was forced to move to a shelter managed by the SPA. She now lives among a group of migrant workers, many of whom have escaped exploitation or abuse.
While employers regularly exercise control over immigrants' living and working conditions, they may also attempt to exert control over their physical bodies. There have been cases of women being forced to sign contracts promising they will not have children, or even pressured to take contraceptives, Lennon told Al Jazeera.
Physical and sexual abuse is also common, especially for domestic carers, mostly women, who may even be forced to share a room with their employers. “There are hundreds of workers who have been raped over the past few years,” she said.
In research commissioned by SPA in 2023, one in six female migrant workers was found to have faced gender-based violence, including explicit or implicit sexual demands.
Although migrants face difficult working conditions in Taiwan, many have a contentious relationship with their adopted country.
For Asis, living in Taiwan has given her access to work and social services that she would not have had in her country. When her newborn baby fell ill, she said her treatment was cheaper than in the Philippines.
A year later, his son is back with his family, while Asis plans to continue earning money in Taiwan. The baby's name, Twain, is a “Taiwan fight,” she explained.
Even Jaali and Asher, victims of human trafficking, expressed their desire to stay. “We came here to earn money,” Jaali said. “We can’t go home without money because we have no work at home.”
For those still working in Taiwan, finding a community can be an important source of autonomy. In towns across the island there are now restaurants, cafes, hotels and even nightclubs, as well as NGOs and unions run by and for migrant workers.
In addition to engaging in advocacy activities, groups such as Migrante Taiwan and SPA have organized protests and flashmob dances, hoping to draw attention to the issues of migrant workers in a creative way.
Back in Kaohsiung, Rudi steps into the crowd and lets the audience members sing with him as Southern Riot finishes their set.
Although they played music for fun, since forming the group, the band has taken on a different political dimension.
With songs titled “Love Song of an Indonesian Migrant Worker” and “From the People to the People,” they explain that they are motivated to give voice to the suffering, problems and dissatisfaction experienced by their co-workers.
“We lack the voice to convey our thoughts to the Taiwanese authorities,” Rudi explained. “Through this music, we hope to be able to convey some of our difficulties, our problems.”
“We want to give a voice to our fellow migrant workers,” he added. “I hope they know they are not alone here. “We are here for them.”
