More than 2,000 people from some 400 families rallied on Taipei streets yesterday to support "International Spank Out Day," which was initiated in 1998 by a US group to bring widespread attention to its campaign to end corporal punishment.
Activists from several dozen other Taiwanese civil groups, including Homemakers' Union and Foundation, also took part in the rally -- a walk from National Taiwan University to Daan Forest Park -- sponsored by the non-profit Humanistic Education Foundation (HEF).
HEF volunteers called on parents and teachers in Taiwan not to spank their children or students, while offering educational information to parents and caregivers about non-violent discipline alternatives.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Group members suggested that adults, rather than smacking a child on a sudden impulse, place a phone call for educational consultation, exchange ideas encouraging non-violent solutions -- particularly during periods of anger -- and seek supportive resources in order to prevent resorting to violence.
"Angry" parents and teachers are also encouraged to hit drums, play ball, or clean the house to channel their sudden impulses or dissipate bad moods.
Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝), who was among several politicians that were invited by the HEF to offer their "pithy formulas" to beef up "International Spank Out Day," said: "Respect and understand children to avoid treating them violently."
Noting that a little child is still a human being whose individuality should be respected by adults, he said that spanking will actually deal only with superficial problems while leaving the core issues unsolved.
Similar Spank Out Day activities were held in Taichung and Kaohsiung yesterday.
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:
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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