On the eve of Mother’s Day, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday released poll results showing that mothers in the nation are most concerned about food safety issues, followed by long-term care of elderly people and children.
Citing the results of the poll, DPP Department of Women’s Development director Lin Ching-yi (林靜儀) said that 84.5 percent of the nation’s mothers are dissatisfied with the government’s performance in food safety, followed by 52.9 percent displeased with long-term efforts to care for elderly people and 38.6 percent unhappy with childcare initiatives.
When asked what they are most worried about, food safety still topped the list with 27.9 percent, family economics followed with 11.3 percent and care of the elderly came third with 9 percent, Lin said.
“The results reflect the worries and dissatisfaction of mothers in the nation, and it is the unavoidable responsibility of the government to deal with those issues,” Lin said. “These issues top the priority list for the DPP and DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to work on.”
One woman who attended the news conference, surnamed Hsia (夏), the mother of a high-school student, said that the poll actually echoed her thoughts.
“My son often eats out as he is preparing for the college entrance exam, and with continuous revelations of tainted food items, I am very worried that he might be exposed to unsafe food that could harm his health,” Hsia said. “I would like the government to come up with an effective way ti prevent tainted foods from entering the market.”
Another woman, surnamed Chiu (邱), who has two children, complained of a lack of public childcare programs.
“Insufficient public childcare resources have long been a problem, especially when low-income, Aboriginal and new immigrant families have priority for public childcare,” she said. “Lack of affordable childcare forces many women to quit their jobs.”
Meanwhile, Chiu’s mother urged the government to present a better system to care for elderly people and to lessen the burden on her children.
Lin said that while everyone is wishing mothers a happy Mother’s Day, the DPP would work to make mothers happy every day.
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