Large residential housing complexes are seen in all densely populated cities. The main needs for young families are babysitters, daycare centers for infants and kindergartens. To meet those needs, childcare facilities have emerged in residential communities. Nevertheless, parents are unaware of the closely shared interests that babysitters and these childcare facilities have.
If a double-income couple cannot count on assistance from their parents when having a baby, they must find a qualified babysitter or nearby daycare center.
As daycare centers for infants often charge steep fees and their hours are inflexible, finding a qualified babysitter to nurse the newborn is often the first choice. Due to the small number of qualified babysitters in many communities and the regulated number of infants that a babysitter is allowed to look after, it is common for qualified babysitters to care for more children than is allowed and to help non-qualified babysitters stay below the radar.
Around the age of three, children go to kindergarten. Babysitters often recommend schools in the same community and parents are happy to accept, as their babysitter’s recommendation can earn them a discount.
Many babysitters feed children with food provided free of charge by the kindergarten and receive a commission from the school if parents send their children there. That is how community kindergartens have been enrolling new students for years.
Large residential complexes often adopt thorough entrance security measures. Before a visitor is let in, the resident is notified and the visitor needs to register at the front desk to get a visitor pass. While the security management process seems watertight, it is often used to protect illegal babysitters.
Due to the frequency of infant and child abuse cases, the government is conducting more unannounced inspections. I recently reported an illegal after-school class at one kindergarten to the authorities. When education bureau inspectors visited, the security staff at the complex notified the facility, allowing teachers to hide students in a nearby convenience store.
Unsurprisingly, the inspectors reported that nothing illegal was going on.
This incident highlights the difficulties of conducting unannounced inspections of community babysitters and kindergartens.
Are inspectors from education and social welfare departments really unaware of this loophole? Of course not.
When I reported the incident to the early childhood education division at the municipality’s education department, I was dumbfounded when a staff member responded by asking: “Do you mean that there is a problem with the community’s security staff? That is not our jurisdiction or responsibility.”
Whenever a case of child abuse or improper discipline is reported on by the media, the authorities say that they have improved information about policies, enhanced reporting mechanisms and stepped up inspections.
The reality is that those three countermeasures have always existed. Sadly, education and social welfare bureaus often pass responsibilities between each other, tolerate illegal conduct, disregard the law and turn a blind eye to violations. Consequently, the public no longer trusts the government or the judiciary.
Laws and regulations might need to be amended, but the problems is that they are not enforced in the first place.
The authorities should immediately tighten the lax controls and enforce the law more strictly. Otherwise, passing laws and amending existing ones is just for show. Not enforcing the law when there is one makes the law ineffective.
Bi Lan-shi is a real-estate manager.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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