Authorities in Taiwan have charged a university administrator and nine others over a scholarship scam that saw Ugandan students forced to work in a factory instead of studying, the AFP news agency reports.
It follows local reports in January of student complaints of being ordered to “intern” at factories, AFP adds.
Chung Chou University of Science and Technology has since been banned from recruiting foreign students.
Prosecutors on Friday charged the school’s dean of student affairs, the deputy chief of the county government’s youth development department and eight others with human trafficking, fraud and corruption among other charges.
The dean and two others allegedly “tricked” the Ugandans with “fake promises of hefty scholarships and high-tech industry internships”, district prosecutors are quoted by AFP as saying.
The students are reported to have been informed that they owed the school travel and other expenses, and had to do work at labour-intensive local factories.
The university is quoted as having told a local news agency in January that “there was a major difference in understanding between foreign students and school administration”.
Source: BBC