Taiwanese civil society groups yesterday called on the government to enhance sex education, citing rising incidents of online exploitation and abuse of minors.
The Taiwan Association for Sexuality Education (TASE), the Chinese Association for the Development of Affective Education and the Action Alliance on Basic Education made the appeal at a news conference in Taipei marking the release of their list of the top 10 news stories of last year in “emotional relationships and sex education.”
The groups cited data showing that cases of sexual exploitation of minors increased 2.2 times over seven years, while sexual image-related complaints surged eightfold over two years.
Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Association for Sexuality Education
Another highlighted case involved a coach who received a combined sentence of 464 years after being convicted of sexually assaulting 32 children.
The groups identified structural issues, including annual abortion numbers in Taiwan exceeding 300,000 and changes in the prevalence of sexually transmitted infections, with infections rising the fastest among those aged 13 to 24.
The 10 stories underscore that sex and emotional education is not limited to teaching biology, but also involves concepts such as dignity, consent, power, responsibility and values, the groups said.
The government should integrate health promotion resources and strengthen preventive education to better protect children, they said.
Yang Tsung-tsai (楊聰財), a psychiatrist and TASE supervisor, said the rise in sexual exploitation of minors and legal complaints relating to online sexual images shows that sexual exploitation has shifted to digital spaces.
Perpetrators often exploit people who trust them to emotionally manipulate them, he said.
Traditional sex education overly focuses on physiology, while neglecting emotional and relationship factors, he added.
Sexually transmitted disease patterns are changing due to the collapse of “psychological defenses,” TASE chairwoman Feng Chia-yu (馮嘉玉) said.
Many young women attempt to exchange sex for love or to deal with loneliness, using “sexual compromise” as a bargaining chip to maintain connections, she said.
If sex education focuses only on contraception without addressing self-worth, consent and responsibility, young people would continue to face risks associated with sexual encounters, Feng said.
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