Taipei, May 11: A Taiwanese garment factory owner has been indicted on charges of forcing three Muslim women workers from Indonesia to eat pork, officials said.
Prosecutors are seeking an eight-month jail term for Chang Wen-lin, the owner of Hsin Hua Hang company.
“The employer had threatened to deduct the salary of the three women if they refused to eat the meals that they offered to the local employees,” prosecution spokesman Cheng Hsin-hung at the Panchiao District Court, said.
The factory owner said she thought that eating pork would provide them with energy, according to legal documents. The incident surfaced after the three filed a complaint to the Taipei county saying that they were overworked and not been paid for around eight months.
There are around 350,000 foreign labourers in Taiwan, largely from Southeast Asia.
-Agencies