The rise in child abuse and the falling birthrate in Taiwan are worrying, first lady Wu Shu-jen (
Wu made the comments at a garden party for parents and children at the 228 Peace Memorial Park in downtown Taipei. The event was aimed at creating a "new paradise for children."
According to the Ministry of the Interior, there have been over 30,000 cases of domestic violence each year in Taiwan in recent years, of which 6.3 percent were related to child abuse. Charity organizations estimate that there are more than 18,000 child victims each year.
In January, the Taipei-based Child Welfare League Foundation released a report saying that at least 4.13 children are abused to death by adults every month on average in Taiwan.
The first lady said that proper care of children need not be a burden.
"It all depends on how you allocate your time," she said.
Wu cited her own example to respond to some parents' complaints that they are too busy at work to spend much time with their children. She said while she was a lawmaker, she still managed to take some time out for her young ones, even though she was wheelchair-bound.
Another social issue the first lady said she was concerned about is Taiwan's falling birth rate, which last year stood at 1.24 babies per woman -- one of the world's lowest rates.
Couples in France and the US had an average of 1.9 and 1.2 babies in last year, while the figures for Sweden and Italy were 1.2 and 1.5, respectively, according to statistics compiled by the Ministry of the Interior.
Wu said she was especially concerned that so many well educated couples seem to be losing interest in starting a family. She pointed out that even some members of President Chen Shui-bian's (
The development of a nation, to a large degree, depends on the quality of its human resources, she said, adding that she hopes that people will love life, care about kids and cherish what they have, so that Taiwan will have a better society and a brighter future.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not