Indonesia suspends Taiwan internship program after students forced to work in contact lens factory, eat meals with pork

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/01/03
By: Keoni Everington, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Students at lens factory. (Photo by Ko Chih-en)

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — After news broke last week that Indonesian college students, as well as other nationalities, had been forced to work in factories and eat meals that contained pork, Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry has suspended internships for its country’s students in Taiwan pending a thorough investigation.

On Dec. 27, Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) said six universities have been exposed as sending their students from New Southbound Policy (NSP) to work as manual laborers in factories. Citing one case as an example, Ko said that 300 Indonesian students enrolled at Hsing Wu University (醒吾科大) were only allowed to go to class two days a week and have one day of rest, while working the remaining four days at a factory, where they packaged 30,000 contact lenses for 10 hours per shift.

Ko said that most of the Indonesian students were Muslims and yet, shockingly, many of the meals consisted of pork chops. Moreover, when the students complained to the university, officials oddly asked them to be patient, and said that if the students help the company, the company will help the school.    [FULL  STORY]