Interior Minister Huang Chu-wen (
The establishment of the bureau in Taichung City (
After four year's of procrastination, the legal framework detailing the organization of the Bureau of Child Welfare finally passed in the last legislative session in June of this year.
"It is an advance in Taiwan's social welfare system," Huang said.
In order to set up a progressive welfare system, he said, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) would also push for a department of social welfare -- a central government-led department solely responsible for welfare implementation.
The chief of the new welfare organization is Liu Bang-fu (
Responding to the concerns of lawmakers, Huang Chu-wen assured then he would provide a plan for the care of children orphaned by the 921 earthquake.
According to statistics from the MOI, 135 children were orphaned as a result of the quake.
Problems surfaced when relatives of these children made competing claims for the custody of the children.
Many suspect that this was not unrelated to the government subsidy of NT$30,000 to NT$40,000 per month for the custodians of the orphans.
Huang said the MOI will make an effort to amend Article 1094 of the Civil Law to ensure the best custodians for the children are chosen.
A trust fund will also be set up to take care of the children until they reach adulthood.
DPP Legislator Lai Ching-lin (
He recommended that the bureau first amend the existing child and juvenile welfare-related laws.
In terms of human rights and welfare principles, there is a gap between these laws and those set by the UN's Children's Rights Convention.
Some of the existing laws in Taiwan relating to children are still based on the perspective of adults, Lai said.
Secondly, Lai said, the bureau should open a national child welfare conference to integrate social resources for children and should consider increasing the budget for child welfare.
The budget for child welfare until the end of 2000 is approximately NT$1.3 billion. This means that for the 3.83 million children in Taiwan, each is entitled to only NT$339 of welfare spending in the coming year, Lai said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS