There have been many reports of child abuse recently. Among these incidents, there was one in which the two children of a 17-year-old mother had been abused. Both the public and media criticized the girl for being “irresponsible,” but the question is: Did the other people that should have taken responsibility in such a situation shoulder their responsibility to stop the situation from worsening?
First, did the school fulfill its responsibilities?
When the girl became pregnant the first time, she was still in junior-high school, which begs the question: Did the school do what it is legally required to do? According to Article 14-1 of the Gender Equity Education Act (性別平等教育法): “The school shall proactively protect the right to education of pregnant students and provide needed assistance.” “Needed assistance” includes learning how to care and take responsibility for a child.
Educators that have helped adolescent mothers say that when a student becomes pregnant, they might not be able to learn subjects like Chinese literature or English, as the more urgent issues at hand are the demands and needs of anyone who is about to become a new parent, and schools should therefore take the initiative to provide parenting information and instruction. Did the 17-year-old’s school provide relevant resources and include her family in a service and educational network?
Second, did the social system fulfill its responsibilities?
The reports said that this young mother was unhappy that her boyfriend was out enjoying himself, so she did the same.
Taiwan’s child daycare situation puts parents under enormous pressure. Judging from this family’s situation, it should have been possible to place the children in a public daycare center so that comprehensive care could be given to the children’s developmental and nutritional needs and allow the mother to continue her studies.
Had the situation become untenable, the children could have been put in a foster home. However, it is obvious that no one told the young parents that there were other choices or that they could ask for help.
Third, did the social affairs bureau and the case worker for the family fulfill their responsibilities?
Judging from the two children’s home situation, it is clear that it was a high-risk environment. The children were clearly behind the developmental curve, raising the question of whether anyone noticed this during vaccination health checks. Did social welfare or child protection authorities report the situation or get directly involved?
Fourth, did sexual education live up to its responsibilities?
No one should be surprised that Taiwan’s sexual education situation has produced results like this case. The film Shall We Swim (青春水漾) — made to promote sex education — was discredited and quickly removed from curricula, and teachers worry that parents will complain if they teach sexual education in school.
Studies long ago proved that sexual education focused on abstinence results in an increase in the number of unplanned pregnancies, high birth rates, high abortion rates and HIV/AIDS. Despite this, schools still invite religious organizations to teach abstinence and fail to mention safe sex practices and the intricacies of intimate relations. That is why incidents like the one involving the 17-year-old mother of two continue to occur.
Should there be a consensus that unplanned pregnancies and adolescent parents are consuming an inordinate amount of social resources, sexual education should be handled properly and introduced at a young age — the earlier the better.
There is no reason to think that sexual education for elementary-school students is shocking, offensive or “going too far,” or that it promotes sexual liberation and teaches children to do “something bad.” The 17-year-old had her first child when she was 15 and in junior-high school; based on a 40-week pregnancy, she had sex when she was 14 years old.
Sexual education can be taught at any age, but requires different methods for different ages. Parents and teachers who avoid sexual education are being irresponsible and they have no right to criticize the young mother.
Children in heterosexual families are not necessarily happy, and heterosexual families that do not raise their children properly might end up without children. Had the two children in this family instead been adopted by two gay partners, perhaps they would have led happier lives and would not have been exposed to a life-threatening situation.
These are urgent issues that those who claim to be protecting “traditional family values” should give some serious thought to. They should focus their efforts on helping dysfunctional heterosexual families in order to ensure they have a good life.
Chuang Shu-ching is deputy chair of the Taiwan Gender Equity Education Association.
Translated by Perry Svensson
China has successfully held its Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, with 53 of 55 countries from the African Union (AU) participating. The two countries that did not participate were Eswatini and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which have no diplomatic relations with China. Twenty-four leaders were reported to have participated. Despite African countries complaining about summit fatigue, with recent summits held with Russia, Italy, South Korea, the US and Indonesia, as well as Japan next month, they still turned up in large numbers in Beijing. China’s ability to attract most of the African leaders to a summit demonstrates that it is still being
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) on Thursday was handcuffed and escorted by police to the Taipei Detention Center, after the Taipei District Court ordered that he be detained and held incommunicado for suspected corruption during his tenure as Taipei mayor. The ruling reversed an earlier decision by the same court on Monday last week that ordered Ko’s release without bail. That decision was appealed by prosecutors on Wednesday, leading the High Court to conclude that Ko had been “actively involved” in the alleged corruption and it ordered the district court to hold a second detention hearing. Video clips
The Russian city of Vladivostok lies approximately 45km from the Sino-Russian border on the Sea of Japan. The area was not always Russian territory: It was once the site of a Chinese settlement. The settlement would later be known as Yongmingcheng (永明城), the “city of eternal light,” during the Yuan Dynasty. That light was extinguished in 1858 when a large area of land was ceded by the Qing Dynasty to the Russian Empire with the signing of the Treaty of Aigun. The People’s Republic of China founded by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never ruled Taiwan. Taiwan was governed by the
The Japanese-language Nikkei Shimbun on Friday published a full-page story calling for Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) leadership hopefuls to be aware of and to prepare for a potential crisis in the Taiwan Strait. The candidates of the LDP leadership race must have a “vision” in case of a Chinese invasion in Taiwan, the article said, adding that whether the prospective president of the LDP and the future prime minister of Japan have the ability to lead the public and private sectors under this circumstance would be examined in the coming election. The “2027 Theory” of a Taiwan contingency is becoming increasingly
RSS