In an effort to increase the rate of employment among people with mental illnesses, the Mental Health Association in Taiwan issued a brochure explaining various mental illnesses on Tuesday to inform potential employers about such disorders and how they affect people.
Based on statistics compiled by the Ministry of the Interior, the association said the number of individuals diagnosed with mental disorder accounts for 0.46 percent of the population. A total of 110,809 people were officially classified as having a mental illness last year.
Mental Health Association president Lu Shu-jen (呂淑貞) said that of the many thousands of Taiwanese with a mental illness, less than 6 percent were employed.
Many employers are reluctant to hire people with mental disorders, even though regulations exist to protect such people’s rights, Lu said.
Because of a lack of understanding, the perceived image of such people as being violent or dangerous has led to them being stigmatized, which often prevents them from getting a job, Lu said.
She said the public tends to think individuals with illnesses such as anxiety disorder, manic-depressive disorder, schizophrenia or obsessive---compulsive disorder are incapable of working.
However, with proper treatment, their ability to work is no different than other people’s, Lu said.
The free brochure can be obtained from the association.
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:
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