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Amendments to welfare law inadequate: groups

"There's too much emphasis on preventing child abuse and protecting adoptees' rights at the expense of addressing overall welfare policies benefiting minors."

-- Hsu Chi-shan, spokesman for the Taiwan Alliance for the Advancement of Youth's Rights and Welfare

Amendments to the Children and Juveniles' Welfare Law (兒童及少年福利法) proposed by lawmakers and the Ministry of the Interior are inadequate in defining and protecting the rights of minors, children's rights groups said yesterday.

The groups made the call ahead of a legislative review of the amendments by the legislature's Sanitation, Environment and Social Welfare Committee tomorrow.

In a statement issued Monday, a dozen charities, led by the Taiwan Alliance for the Advancement of Youth's Rights and Welfare, slammed the amendments as riddled with "shortcomings."

"There's a lot of room for improvement [in the amendments]," alliance spokesman Hsu Chi-shan (徐志山) said yesterday.

At issue was the amendments' failure to address shortcomings in the Children and Juveniles' Welfare Law, which the legislature passed in 2003, Hsu said.

Major flaws in the law include its failure to define the rights minors are entitled to and to thoroughly address welfare policies for children, he said.

"There's too much emphasis on preventing child abuse and protecting adoptees' rights at the expense of addressing overall welfare policies benefiting minors," Hsu said in a telephone interview.

The alliance, which helps abused women and children, has authored its own draft amendment which it hoped lawmakers would include in tomorrow's key review.

Hsu said the alliance issued the press release on Monday following a week of behind-the-scenes meetings with lawmakers.

"We [the alliance] met about 20 legislators or their assistants," Hsu said. "They wanted to see our draft amendment, so we sent it to them."

"We hope to sit down with related parties and discuss [how to make this law better]," Hsu said. "The 10 other draft amendments do make improvements on the law, and for that we're grateful."

The release, however, reserved harsher words for the ministry's Children's Bureau, which it said had neglected to solicit the opinions of children's charities in drafting its amendment.

"In four limited meetings on the draft amendment, the bureau opened discussion of the legislation on only a small portion of its content. This in no way meets the expectations of citizens to thoroughly discuss and revise the law," it said.

Two bureau officials overseeing the amendment declined to comment on the matter yesterday, saying they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Bureau Director Huang Pi-hsia's (黃碧霞) office did not respond to requests for an interview.
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