Information about New Taipei City childcare workers who were found guilty of child abuse can be accessed online, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said yesterday.
The city’s Social Welfare and Legal Affairs departments are taking the issue of child abuse very seriously, as there have been several reports of child abuse at daycare centers and at home over the past week, he said.
The Social Welfare Department yesterday launched a page on its Web site to publish reports of convicted child abusers, Hou said, adding that the section has so far been updated with the two most recent cases.
Photo: Screen grab from the Miaoli County Government Web site
Information about child abusers used to be displayed in the “recent news” section of the Web site, which meant the information was quickly buried by new announcements, he said.
The decision to publicize the information was at the discretion of the department, Hou said, citing the rejection of a request by a father to post the ruling in a case in which an offender was sentenced to four months in prison.
The department decided that the incident was not significant enough, he added.
Following a spate of child abuse cases reported by the local media, a number of officials across party lines have been calling for information about child abusers to be made more transparent.
New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) on Tuesday said that a database of people “unfit for work at childcare facilities” must be established.
Saul Peng (彭盛韶), director of the Banciao District (板橋) branch of the NPP’s New Taipei City chapter, yesterday said that because of the way information was displayed on the Social Welfare Department’s Web site, it was impossible to find records even from as recent as 2017.
The governments of Taipei and Miaoli County have made information about child abusers easily accessible on their Web sites, and New Taipei City should not lag behind, he said.
Democratic Progressive Party New Taipei City Councilor Chang Wei-chien (張維倩) at a city council meeting on Wednesday last week called for an online platform to list child abusers and the childcare centers at which they worked.
Star swimmer Jason Tang (唐聖捷), who previously ran for office in New Taipei City’s Taishan District (泰山), said that while the city’s improvement of the accessibility of offender information was “better late than never,” it was not enough to post only the two most recent cases.
Miaoli County has made offender information dating back to 2014 available on its Web site, despite it being understaffed and lacking resources, Tang said.
The New Taipei City Government has no excuse for not doing a better job, he said.
The city must provide better records as soon as possible to protect the city’s children and allow parents to feel safe sending their children to daycare facilities, he said.
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
NOT AN OPENING: Trump’s violation of international law does not affect China’s consideration in attacking Taiwan; Beijing lacks capability, not precedent, an official said Taiwanese officials see the US’ capture of the president of Venezuela as a powerful deterrent to Beijing’s aggression and a timely reminder of the US’ ability to defeat militaries equipped with Chinese-made weapons. The strikes that toppled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro signaled to authoritarian leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), US President Donald Trump’s willingness to use military might for international affairs core to US interests, one senior official in Taipei’s security circle said. That reassured Taiwan, the person said. Taipei has also dismissed the idea that Trump’s apparent violation of international law could embolden Beijing, said the official, who was not
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
Snow this morning fell on Alishan for the first time in seven years, as a strong continental cold air mass sent temperatures plunging across Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The Alishan weather station, located at an elevation of about 2,200m in central Taiwan, recorded snowfall from 8:55am to 9:15am, when the temperature dropped to about 1°C, the CWA said. With increased moisture and low temperatures in the high-altitude Alishan area, the conditions were favorable for snow, CWA forecaster Tsai Yi-chi (蔡伊其) said. The last time snow fell at the Alishan weather station was on Jan. 10, 2018, while graupel fell there
RSS