More money should be spent on job training and presentation spaces for youth, civil rights advocates said yesterday, adding that children and youth issues should be included in the agenda of a promised national human rights commission.
“Over the past five years, average spending on children and youth has only averaged 3.5 percent of the government’s budget, even though they make up about one-sixth of the population,” Taiwan Alliance for the Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare secretary-general Yeh Da-hua (葉大華) said, calling on the government to set aside spaces for community youth activity centers, as well as funding for better job training programs.
“Young people run into problems because there are not many free spaces for them to put on displays or hold exhibitions, but they also cannot lawfully seek donations because they are barred from launching civic organizations until adulthood,” she said.
She also called for labor law reforms to improve protections for teenage workers, including a ban on them working past 10pm.
A current ban only applies to teenagers who are also students, while those who are not students are subjected to the same workplace conditions as adult workers, she said.
Children and youth issues should be included on the agenda of the national human rights commission promised by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), she added.
National Taiwan University student council president Lin Yen-ting (林彥廷) said that schools have extensive powers to curb student expression, including regulating what clubs can be organized and controlling what students can publish.
“In the case of Taichung Senior High School, a student publication included a picture of the principal with sunflowers at the bottom, which the school responded to by confiscating all copies and returning them with the photo page torn out,” he said. “Even though the Senior High School Education Act (高級中等教育法) requires official school meetings to include elected student representatives, in practice many schools still do not hold students elections or only allow student representatives to listen in on meetings.”
“The budget should not be bloated — any deficiencies should be clearly outlined,” Minister Without Portfolio Lin Wan-i (林萬億) said, adding that ministries had been ordered to report their spending related to children and youth.
There is space to discuss further measures to protect the rights of teenage workers, he said, but remained vague on the human rights commission.
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