While the nation's overall birth rate falls so low that the Council of Labor Affairs is offering financial incentives to couples to induce them to have children, the birth rate for girls aged 15-19 is the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, according to local non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
But that's not necessarily good news, according to the Taipei Association for the Promotion of Women's Rights (TAPWR), an NGO composed of female lawyers.
The association, along with the Nursing Teachers Association of the Republic of China -- another NGO that seeks to add more health and sex education classes to schools' curricula -- cited the statistic at a press conference yesterday, saying that young women and girls who become pregnant often do so by accident.
"There isn't sufficient sex education in our schools, which is why so many school-age girls are getting pregnant by accident," said Chen I-chun (陳怡君), a member of TAPWR.
Wu Cheng-ting (
Wu said that many teachers are too embarrassed to teach classes about sex and gender equality.
In light of the lack of sex education and the sheer number of unexpected pregnancies, TAPWR published a book on sex-related issues recently, and held a press conference in Taipei yesterday to launch it.
"This book is for educators to use in helping both boys and girls to understand how to avoid unexpected pregnancies, and to tell girls what their options are if they do find themselves pregnant," TAPWR member Lan Bei-chi (藍貝芝) said.
She added that the book -- How To Handle an Unexpected Pregnancy (
"The book is an updated guide that covers the medical, legal and social aspects of sex and pregnancy," Chen said as she demonstrated how to properly use a condom by deftly applying one to a vibrator.
"When I visit schools [to demonstrate condom usage], not even the teachers refer to a penis properly. Finally, we had everybody call the vibrator Mr Adam (亞當先生)," Chen added.
Li Chao-huan (李兆環), the director of TAPWR, told reporters that her association is seeking to put a copy of How To Handle an Unexpected Pregnancy in every junior high and senior high school in the country.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift