Advertisement
Coronavirus: Taiwan uses prison labour to meet demand for face masks
- Self-ruled island’s prisons routinely employ inmates to make products, from clothing to soap
- One prisoner is 10 years into a 23-year sentence for possession of drugs and firearms
3-MIN READ3-MIN
Behind barbed wire-topped fences at Taipei Prison, a small group of inmates hunch over clacking sewing machines, working overtime to make face masks and help ward off the coronavirus that has caused more than 4,200 deaths worldwide.
Usually the men would be making prison uniforms in the well-lit sewing factory in the northwestern Taiwanese city of Taoyuan. But after the coronavirus spread to Taiwan they have switched to making masks, putting together about 52,000 of them since mid-February.
Wearing a grey mask, a 50-year-old inmate surnamed Yuh said he was keeping his family close to his heart as he worked.
Advertisement
“When they came to see me, they said it was very difficult to buy face masks out there. I said to them, ‘Daddy is making face masks here, and that maybe you will have the benefit and the opportunity to use it’,” he said.
“Every time I sew face masks, I think to myself that it can bring some security to my family.”
Yuh is 10 years into a 23-year sentence for possession of drugs and firearms.
Advertisement
Select Voice
Select Speed
1.00x