Yilan County ranked first among 22 cities and counties in terms of helping victims of child abuse, while Yunlin, Hualien and Nantou counties were at the bottom of the list, a poll by a local health magazine shows.
While the number of newborn babies has decreased by 20 percent in the past decade, child abuse cases have increased by more than three times over the same period, with about 20,000 children traumatized by abuse every year, according to Common Health magazine, that has been conducting city surveys for more than 10 years and chose child abuse as this year’s topic.
The magazine evaluated the performance of the 22 cities and counties on curbing child abuse based on 15 criteria such as executive ability, manpower and activeness, and separately conducted a survey on front-line child abuse social workers.
On executive ability, the survey showed that as many as nine cities and counties failed to do what the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act (兒童及少年福利與權益保障法) stipulates, which is that authorized municipal agencies and county/city governments must take care of a reported child abuse case within 24 hours after acknowledging or receiving the report.
The accomplishment rate for this task in Nantou County and Hsinchu County was between 60 percent and 70 percent, while that of Yunlin County failed to reach 50 percent, the survey showed.
On manpower, while in developed countries social workers usually handle 15 to 25 child abuse cases per person, none of Taiwan’s 22 administrative regions met this standard except for two outlying islands where populations are small, with social workers in Hualien County having to take on more than 230 cases per person.
The budget allocated for each child is as low as NT$50 in some regions, according to the survey on policy efficiency, while some regions have a budget of approximately NT$300 per child.
A separate survey on frontline social workers, on the other hand, showed that 90 percent of respondents have at some point in their career in social services been threatened, harassed, followed or attacked by family members of abused children.
Furthermore, more than 85 percent of those polled indicated that their working hours exceeded eight hours per day.
The academics at the press conference advised the government to establish a child protection database incorporating the necessary services and effective evaluation criteria, and to provide a more friendly working environment which offers social workers better pay, guaranteed safety and proper training.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
RSS