Parents who give cigarettes to their children are not only breaking the law, but are also torturing their children and should be heavily penalized, the John Tung Foundation said yesterday.
The foundation also publicized videos in which parents or other adults were seen providing cigarettes to children and babies and laughing as they smoked or coughed after inhaling the smoke.
Photos and videos of young children smoking cigarettes have been posted on the Internet recently.
PHOTO: LIAO CHEN-HUEI, TAIPEI TIMES
Lin Ching-li (林清麗), head of the foundation’s Tobacco Hazard Prevention Section, said that in the past four days, the foundation had received more than 20 complaints concerning videos posted by adults who let children smoke cigarettes.
Many of the videos are posted on Internet video sites and popular blog sites and can be found under categories such as “family entertainment” or “learning and growing,” she said.
The foundation said such parenting behavior was irresponsible and was no different from people who record themselves torturing animals and post the video on Web sites.
Parents who allow or even force their children to smoke cigarettes are damaging their children’s health and skewing their children’s behavior, it said.
The foundation said studies showed that the younger a person starts smoking, the more difficult it will be for that person to quit the habit.
People who start smoking before they are 15 years of age are also eight times more likely to develop lung cancer, the foundation said.
“Parents should realize that they are responsible for their children’s welfare,” Sun Yue (孫越), a celebrity who is now a volunteer at the foundation, said. “Parents should not find entertainment or happiness at the expense of their children’s health.”
The foundation said adults who provide tobacco to children were in violation of the Children and Youth Welfare Act (兒童及少年福利法), an offense punishable by a fine of between NT$10,000 and NT$50,000.
SELF-RELIANCE: Taiwan would struggle to receive aid in the event of an invasion, so it must prepare to ‘hold its own’ for the first 70 days of a war, a defense expert said Taiwan should strengthen infrastructure, stock up on reserves and step up efforts to encourage Taiwanese to fight against an enemy, legislators and experts said on Tuesday last week. The comments sought to summarize what the nation should learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has exceeded 300 days, since Feb. 24 last year. Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said that the war in Ukraine highlighted the importance of being ready for war. Taiwan’s development of an “asymmetrical warfare” doctrine and extending mandatory conscription to one year is a good start to preparation of defense against a
The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday said it would delay the lifting of the indoor mask mandate, citing public health considerations and ongoing discussions on how the policy should be implemented. Earlier this week, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said officials from several ministries were working on the policy and an announcement would be made yesterday. However, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the CECC, yesterday said that the policy was still under review. Wang said its implementation would be “delayed slightly” due to three main factors. First, the center
END OF SERIES: As the first generation of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are set to expire, the CECC would no longer offer them to children younger than four years old The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported the nation’s first case of a person infected with the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2. The Taiwanese man in his 20s arrived from Canada on Jan. 22, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), who is deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division. He tested positive after reporting having a runny nose and muscle soreness while in airport quarantine, Lo said. The XBB.1.5 subvariant is the dominant strain in the US, but there is no evidence to suggest that it causes more severe illness than other Omicron subvariants, he said,
NORMALIZING TIES: The delegation led by the KMT’s Johnny Chiang is to meet with British lawmakers, think tanks and business groups to discuss developments A legislative delegation led by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) arrived in the UK yesterday to rally support for Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Chiang heads the Legislative Yuan’s Taiwan-UK Interparliamentary Amity Association. The delegation also includes KMT legislators Ma Wen-chun (馬文君), Wen Yu-hsia (溫玉霞), Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), Sandy Yu (游毓蘭) and Wu I-ding (吳怡玎). The group is to meet with British lawmakers Alicia Kearns, who chairs the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee; Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the House Defence Select Committee; and Bob Stewart, who cochairs the