At a human rights task force meeting held today, Vice Premier Chang San-cheng demanded ministries and agencies to beef up protection of the rights of students participating in overseas internship, work and volunteer programs as well as encourage businesses to take greater responsibility for environmental protection.
Many universities and colleges offer students internship opportunities with companies and institutions abroad via job matching by private employment service institutes. Students in such programs often fall prey to labor rights violations, however, due to the lack of either transparency or specification of rights and responsibilities.
Schools should thoroughly and responsibly assess and select overseas internship programs while providing guidance to students, Chang said. Additionally, the Ministry of Education (MOE) should immediately help schools clarify and handle cases of students' rights being undermined, and other related government agencies should also provide assistance.
Aside from overseas internships, the task force also discussed problems faced by students working or volunteering abroad. As the information the government provides on these subjects tends to be dispersed and unclear, the vice premier asked the MOE and the Ministry of Labor (MOL) to thoroughly review existing problems and propose a plan at the next meeting for a website providing comprehensive and accessible information.
To safeguard the rights of students in overseas internship programs and ensure quality, schools are required to:
- Evaluate institutions and job-matching mechanisms.
- Formulate procedural principles.
- Ink cooperative agreements.
- Provide counseling to students prior to internships.
- Conduct reviews of internships after they have concluded.
On a regular or periodic basis, schools should visit and provide guidance to students in internship programs in order to understand their circumstances and prevent their exploitation, the MOE said.
In accordance with the Employment Service Act, the MOL will strictly regulate the private employment service institutes that match students with internships abroad. The ministry is also planning to establish an overseas-employment resource center website that comprehensively collects the labor regulations, conditions, salaries, and everyday expense levels of the countries that Taiwanese visit often. Citizens can then refer to this information before they go abroad to work.
After listening to relevant ministries' discussions of enterprises' environmental conservation responsibilities, Vice Premier Chang said that the issue involves a wide range of aspects and urged all authorities to handle it in a proactive manner, provide supervision in accordance with responsibilities, and assist and encourage enterprises to realize their environmental conservation responsibilities.
At present, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is promoting writing enterprises' environmental conservation responsibilities into law. In addition, the EPA is honoring enterprises that make major conservation achievements, in order to encourage other firms to follow their example.
Besides investigating sources of pollution, the EPA imposes diverse pollution prevention fees upon enterprises. Making enterprises pay for their pollution economically incentivizes them to shoulder their responsibility for conservation.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has been offering enterprises guidance and resources on pollution prevention and cleaner production for years. The ministry has also promoted the Green Factory Label system to assist and urge enterprises to take their environmental duties seriously.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) will keep supervising publicly traded companies as well as small and medium-sized enterprises to ensure they follow relevant environmental regulations and prevent pollution. In addition, the FSC pointed out publicly traded companies must follow environmental regulations when conducting fundraising. If the company has previously been punished due to pollution, it is obligated to reveal that information in the company prospectus.