A sexual assault scandal has occurred at Hualien County’s Meilun Private Development Institution for the Mentally Challenged, which cares for, educates and rehabilitates children with special needs. A staff member allegedly sexually assaulted several children at the institution, but it went unreported, despite being known by the director and some of the teachers.
A nurse who worked there at the time reported the incidents, but the management allegedly covered them up and destroyed documentation. It accused the nurse, who left after the assaults were uncovered, of being resentful and seeking retaliation.
Following an investigation, the accused staff member, the chief administrative officer, surnamed Chang (張), was transferred to the district prosecutors’ office.
At the same time, it was found that another facility in Hualien, to which three students from the Meilun institution had been transferred, was allegedly involved in destroying evidence related to the sexual assault at Meilun.
The Garden of Hope Foundation has issued a statement calling for a review of structural issues, such as the failure to implement the reporting system as stipulated in the Sexual Assault Crime Prevention Act (性侵害犯罪防治法) and People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act (身心障礙者權益保障法), and the standard procedures when dealing with alleged sexual assault.
The statement also said that the more closed a facility is, the more powerful its caregivers and its management are, and a severe power imbalance increases the risk of sexual violence.
Such cases are not limited to facilities for the disabled, but often occur on school campuses.
I once assisted in a sexual harassment case at a university in central Taiwan. A student said that she was sexually harassed by a male professor and reported it to a female lecturer in the same department, but was told to endure.
The female professor said that she handled the case the way she did because she needed to make a living.
The university president, a recipient of the National Excellent Teacher Award, supported the male professor and said the student was causing trouble.
This bears a striking resemblance to the Meilun scandal.
Scandals in Taiwan unfold in clusters because problems are covered up. When the truth finally comes out, the perpetrator is caught.
Celebrities, academics and officials often receive help from relatives, friends and colleagues to conceal wrongdoings, which leads to more wrongdoings until they are caught.
The responsibility of filing reports for legal violations is given to these “respectable people,” who are actually accomplices. They often avoid supervision in the name of “university autonomy.”
If this problem is not fixed, ethics issues involving government officials and university presidents will keep happening.
Article 241 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法) is the solution to this structural problem: “A public official who, in the execution of his official duties, learns that there is suspicion that an offense has been committed must report it.”
According to the reasoning of Constitutional Interpretation No. 382, public schools are administrative agencies and private schools should also be treated as administrative agencies when dealing with teacher misconduct.
According to the article, if institutions do not report suspected offenses, the Ministry of Education should hold relevant staff, such as administrative managers and teacher evaluation committee members, liable for teacher misconduct, and they should be added to the ministry’s database of unfit teaching staff.
Only by nipping the problem in the bud will misconduct be thoroughly eliminated.
Niu Ming is a researcher.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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