Taipei, May 29: A couple in Chiayi, southern Taiwan, has been turned over to the authorities for forcing their Indonesian worker, a Muslim, to cook pork and work long hours, police said Saturday.
Su Yi-liang, director of the Hsinnan police station in Chiayi, said the Indonesian worker recently filed a complaint at the station, saying that she arrived in Taiwan in January 2010 to take care of an elderly person.
However, the worker said, she never saw the person she was supposed to take care of and instead was used as cheap labor by her employer, surnamed Su, a vendor at a traditional market.
The worker complained that she had to work for up to 16 hours per day and was forced to handle pork, which her religion forbids.
According to the police chief, Su did not employ the worker properly and even threatened to have her sent back to Indonesia if she did not comply with his demands.
To prevent her from absconding, Su also withheld her wages for more than a year and prevented her from communicating with others.
–Agencies