The Taiwan Fund for Children and Families has established April 28 as Child Protection Day to raise awareness of child abuse, and yesterday invited 428 families to an event at the Chianti Boulevard Plaza in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) to show their support for a society free from child abuse.
Last year, 19,174 children and teenagers were reported to have suffered abuse, meaning more than 52 children are exposed to violence and an unsafe environment each day, and the organization said that 71 percent of those cases involved the children’s parents.
“Every month, we lose forever 1.4 children, on average, to deadly child abuse. We are strongly against depriving children of their right to life. Committing suicide with children is the gravest kind of child abuse,” said fund chief executive Betty Ho (何素秋), who urged the public to care about the children around them and refer those who need help to the organization.
The campaign urges parents to refrain from physically punishing children and to either calm down when enraged by their children’s behavior, or call the organization for assistance.
The climax of the event was the playing of an audio recording made by the child protection authority, in which a father is heard scolding and beating his child in a rage as the child’s mother intervened to no avail, and was also beaten.
While the recording was aired, the participants at the event were asked to blindfold themselves to feel the horror experienced by the helpless child.
“The figure of 19,174 [cases] is probably the tip of the iceberg. It is only due to greater awareness that the number of child abuse cases reported has increased in the past three years,” Ho said.
“People are now telling parents off when they exhibit abusive behavior toward children in public, but we are hoping to further raise public consciousness,” Ho added.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS