Shocked by the rising number of sex crimes committed by minors, the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF) yesterday urged the government, parents and schools to put in more effort into preventing such offenses.
“It’s both sad and shocking to find, according to figures released by the Ministry of the Interior, that about 60 percent of victims of sexual assault are under the age of 18, while more than 10 percent of the offenders are also minors,” Miguel Wang (王明仁), TFCF’s executive director, said at a press conference in Taipei.
Ministry figures show that the percentage of sex crime victims under the age of 18 grew from 56 percent in 2005 to 58 percent this year.
However, the number of sex offenders in the same age group has grown from 153 in 2005 to 751 last year and accounted for 12 percent of all sex offenders in the past year.
As of September, the number of sex offenders who were minors had reached 730, or 13.64 of the total number of sex offenders for that period.
“We’re really afraid that the number may surpass 1,000 by the end of this year,” Wang said. “These are horrible numbers, and we call on the public — especially the government, parents and schools — to pay more attention to this issue.”
Donghwa University Student Counseling Center director Chen Jo-chang (陳若璋) said minors committed sex offenses because they wanted to have fun — playing group sex games or by trying to imitate adult movies and games — or because they wanted to do something “exciting.”
There have also been cases in which victims of sexual assault have turned into offenders by “seeking revenge,” he said.
“Studies have found that many offenders come from dysfunctional families or families in which parents often leave their children alone, either because they don’t have time or don’t care,” Chen said.
“School and parental intervention, as well as better psychological counseling for sex crime victims, are very important in preventing sex offenses by minors,” Chen said.
The government should improve its rating systems for games and movies to prevent minors from viewing or playing games with sexual content, Wang said.
“It just takes more cautious efforts from us, the adults, to stop tragedies like sex offenses against or by our next generation,” Wang said.
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