The Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (CCF) yesterday announced its ranking of last year's top 10 news stories involving child-protection issues.
The list includes instances of the government's efforts to address child abuse through legislation, but it also draws attention to a number of gruesome child abuse cases.
The top 10 stories as ranked by the CCF are:
The legislature's passage of an amendment to the Children and Juveniles Welfare Law (
The amendment extended the law's protections to children up to 18 years old.
Prior to the amendment's passage, protection was restricted to children under 12.
A father in Kaohsiung County committed suicide and poisoned his three children as well. All three children died.
The Ministry of the Interior agreed to amend the Domestic Violence Prevention Law (
Mentally challenged twins who were abandoned by their mother six years previously won gold medals in sprinting and inline skating at the Special Olympics.
Cable TV stations showed live broadcasts of a father carrying his young daughter onto an overpass and attempting to jump with the child in his arms. The police managed to prevent the man from jumping.
The police arrested a Miaoli couple who had been involved in raping a girl. The couple, who had been unable to conceive a child, tricked the girl into entering their home and the man raped the girl several times while the woman held her down. The girl gave birth to a baby whom the couple eventually abandoned.
A 12-year-old boy physically and sexually assaulted an 11-year-old girl. The boy told police that he had learned about sexual assaults from television.
A boy in Taitung was beaten to death by his father's girlfriend after his father went to prison.
A father in Taoyuan County was found to have raped his mentally challenged daughter several times over a period of years. The daughter gave birth to two daughters as a result, and the father was suspected of raping the two girls too.
A mother in Taipei County drugged her 8-year-old daughter and allowed her boyfriend to rape the girl.
"Although negative stories made up most of the top 10 stories, we are still positive about government efforts to construct a more comprehensive service network, such as the Children and Juveniles Welfare Law and the emergent protection order," said CCF executive director Chen Bang-hung (陳邦宏).
Chen said that last year's list was the first such list that did not include any conventional child abuse stories.
Instead, the stories included many instances of parents committing suicide and killing their children as well.
"There were many stories last year that involved parents committing suicide and deciding to bring their children along with them, and that is a violation of the children's right to life," said Tung Fu-chuan (
"Sometimes the public sympathizes with the parents, but this is in fact the worst kind of domestic violence.," Tung said.
"No one has the right to deprive others of their lives," Tung said.
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