Exchange Student Starved by Host Family

that is just crazy!

This is horrible. I wonder why the young man didn't alert his parents? Who knows if his letters would have made it through.

I hope that family isn't allowed to host children again.

How terrible!

geez

Whoa!

I agree, this is plain sad. The world is completely sad I mean kids cant even go study places, because you cant trust anyone ever!

I read this article this morning and thought it was terrible.

Usually the exchange programs are monitored by volunteers in the host country. I wonder how this could happen. Perhaps they were quite isolated. My son was in Italy and had a lot of activities with the local AFS Intercultura group in addition to people he could contact if he had any problems. He was in a city, however.

How can things like this happen? So sad, that this boy had to endure this. It should be good memorable times going to another host place to study. Sadly this won't be one for him.

He had to have been held hostage, as several have said, not to be able to get out of there and get to a place where he could get food. Did they ask him if the neighbors did the same thing. If the fasting was that extreme. There should have been an American representative there at the counsulate, that checked out the host families before our children were allowed to go there. Goodness what a horrible experience.

I find that really hard to believe. I am a Copt Egyptian studying in Italy...Yes we do have special diet while fasting, but that's usually more neutrious than normal food. We simply become vegans for certain periods, and I haven't heard of a vegan who suffered starvation.
Copts are generally known for over feeding their guests and so it is just impossible that this happened. Ask any tourist who went to a Coptic family or a Coptic monastery...Even when we are fasting or lenting, and we have guests of other faiths, we make sure they eat their normal food. I find it totally hard to believe, it is just impossible to rationalize the incident. If it truly happened, the kid should have reported and went away..what made him stay all that time until he suffered that much...
It is just unbelievable!

I can see the pictures but have a hard time believing that a teenager would volunteer to starve.... all the teenage boys I know would either mooch off of friends or phone home!!!

Yikes!

This is horrible!

Someone definitely needs to look into this.

I don't know how a year could have gone by without some kind of monitoring that would have stopped this abuse.

I don't think they understood how much food a teenage boy needs. He's still growing obviously

Makes no sense to me. I placed foreign exchange students in the U.S. from Europe. I had to monitor the host families, do reports once a month, make sure the kids made regular phone calls to their parents.

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This is frightening. I hope there's more to this story.

I hadn't heard this! Sickening.

You know, I'd think a seventeen year old would get out of that situation to save his life if he were being starved. Something's up with this...

Yikes !!!! Horrors !!!!

that's horrible

It sure sounds crazy. I was an exchange student myself at age 15-16 and, I too were living in less than good conditions, but I was alone in a new country for the first time ever. I didn't tell my parents about the situation, as I thought it would be like giving up, and they couldn't do much from the other side of the world anyway. The host family had led me to believe that they were great friends with the exchange student coordinator, so I thought she knew about the living conditions etc. This turned out not to be true, and when my parents came to visit six months into my stay they got quite a shock.

Those people are crazy!

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With stories like that how are parents suppossed to let their children experience fun programs overseas?