A tour guide surnamed Hsieh (謝) has lost his job after he allegedly verbally harassed students from Taichung Municipal Taichung Girls’ Senior High School during their graduation trip.
The students went on a three-day trip earlier this month to Kaohsiung and Pingtung County’s Kenting (墾丁).
During the bus ride from Taichung on the first day, Hsieh had asked the students to listen to him and allegedly said: “If not, then I will put my tongue in your mouth, and twirl it inside 18 times,” and “If you don’t listen, then you would have no boyfriends in the future ... nobody would want to date you,” as well as other statements the students deemed as offensive language.
Photo: Huang Hsu-lei, Taipei Times
Several of the students posted on social media about Hsieh’s actions after the trip, with one student saying: “I felt very uncomfortable, it was quite offensive.”
“It was disgusting, like verbal harassment of a sexual nature,” another said.
Others demanded that the school reopen the tender for next year, as Fairy Tours Co, the travel agency Hsieh worked for, had obtained a contract for the school’s trips for six years straight.
Fairy Tours Co owner Huang Kuo-jui (黃國瑞) issued an apology on Monday last week and said that Hsieh has been dismissed.
“From my impression, he seemed quite responsible and diligent at work ... but this time, he took the jokes too far,” Huang said.
School principal Hung Yu-ling (洪幼齡) said she would convene a gender equality committee to investigate the incident, and to see if Hsieh could be prosecuted under the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法).
As part of his apology, Huang said he would refund the fees paid by students on Hsieh’s bus.
He also donated NT$50,000 to the school’s fund for promoting gender equity and pledged to include gender and sexual harassment prevention in their staff training.
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