Several civic groups yesterday called for legislation to better protect the rights of children and juveniles, saying that abuse of the young at home or at school has become a serious issue.
“Homes and schools are supposed to be safe havens for children and young adults, but it doesn’t seem to be the case anymore,” Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare secretary-general Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華) told a press conference at the legislature yesterday.
“Based on media reports, we have found that in the 118 days since the beginning of the year, a case of child abuse at home or at school occurs every two days and one child or juvenile dies because of abuse every six days,” Yeh said.
In addition to 19 deaths and 17 injuries caused by violence at home or at school, there have been 40 cases of sexual abuse of children at home or at school since the start of the year, Yeh said.
Yeh and representatives from several groups, including the Garden of Hope Foundation, the Humanistic Education Foundation and the Jing-chuan Child Safety Foundation, called for either a new act to protect the rights of minors or a revision of the Children and Juveniles’ Welfare Act (兒童及少年福利法).
“The law we have at the moment doesn’t do enough to safeguard the rights of children and juveniles,” Yeh said.
For example, she said a more acceptable social worker to student ratio would be one social worker for every 1,000 elementary or junior high school students.
“However, we have more than 2 million elementary and junior high school students, but only 55 on-campus social workers,” she said.
Yeh said trained professional social workers were better at identifying abuse victims and could intervene before it was too late.
“Although there are counselors on campus, they deal mostly with psychological counseling,” Yeh said. “Since most on-campus counselors are also teachers and part of the school system, they may not be all that independent.”
The groups said legislation would also help promote the concept of the need to protect children’s rights.
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