Tue, Mar 27, 2001 page8

• Domestic violence is a seriousproblem

  • By Joanne Liu 劉淑瓊
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  Local media recently reported that a six-year-old Pingtung boy was beaten to death by his unemployed father Huang Pao-chuan (黃寶全), who was drunk on the night he allegedly killed the boy. Television reports showed the victim's neighbors publicly condemning the parents' abusive behavior. According to them, the parents had been charged with abusing their three children about three years previously, and local social welfare institutions had stepped in and provided counseling. The case, however, was dismissed after both Huang and his wife expressed their regret to the social workers.

  It is almost predictable that people will blame the death on Huang's personality and his inability to control his emotions, or even the climbing unemployment rate and the economic slowdown in Taiwan. After a heated discussion, however, the issue of domestic violence will be ignored again while the victims cry in the dark.

  It seems to be slightly unfair to criticize the authorities for doing nothing to prevent family vio-lence. At the urging of women's groups, the progressive Family Violence Prevention Law (家庭暴力防治法) was passed in June 1998. Under that law, the Ministry of the Interior established a Family Violence Prevention Commission (家庭暴力防治委員會) while local governments established domestic violence prevention centers (家庭暴力防治中心).

  Despite the central government's hard work, however, the institutions in charge of domestic violence prevention are rather makeshift operations, subject to personnel cuts and run by staff for whom the work is an addition to their contractual duties. The mission, to connect local police, education, social welfare, population administration and justice departments in order to provide victims with a complete service, is actually a "mission impos-sible" in terms of efficiently implementing the law.

  In certain cities and counties where local government heads do not pay attention to domestic violence, participation in the work varies from department to department, and cooperation between departments usually depends on personal connections rather than the regulations. In addition, the manpower available to local governments for social work is insufficient and social workers are usually willing but unable to handle complicated domestic violence cases. Sometimes even their own lives are threatened.

  Counseling for domestic violence victims is very limited, especially when it comes to children who witness the violence or for the people who commit these crimes -- which is precisely one of the major reasons why the number of domestic violence cases is increasing.

  Meanwhile, the Tax Redistribution Fund system (統籌分配款) which went into effect this year has substantially raised the financial autonomy of the cities and counties. Since the interior ministery has no extra resources for subsidies, local governments might feel that there is no need for them to actively cooperate with the central government. Hence, the promotion of domestic violence prevention might produce superficial results for local chiefs to showcase while the actual assistance to the victims, as well as the culprits, is limited.

  I believe it is the government's responsibility to immediately improve the situation. The government must face the reality of Taiwan's poor performance in domestic violence prevention and properly redistribute its resources in order to provide the equipment and support necessary for social workers to educate people, to encourage reporting of family violence, to provide counseling for victims, to rehabilitate the perpetrators and to rebuild family values.

  Joanne Liu is an associate professor at the School of Mass Communication at Ming Chuan University.

  Translated by Eddy Chang
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