Taipei health officials on Wednesday said they would implement reforms after a one-year-old child allegedly died from abuse while under the care of an in-home childcare provider contracted by the city. The Child Welfare League Foundation, the accused’s employer, has been barred from providing adoption and foster services, pending a staffing review. However, the foundation is only one of many civic groups, which employ a total of 4,272 caregivers in Taipei alone.
Deaths and injuries of children from abuse by caregivers have occurred numerous times in the past. The issue would not be resolved by restricting individual employers or even by reforming policies at the county or municipal level. Strict reforms are urgently needed at the national level.
Past child abuse incidents have involved in-home caregivers and nannies, and staff at kindergartens, daycare centers and orphanages. Last month, the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office charged the owner of a daycare center and two others with involuntary manslaughter after one of them smothered a baby last year. In her testimony, the accused said that she had “learned by example,” and that no one taught her how to put a baby to bed.
In 2019, the owner of a daycare center in Tainan was charged with manslaughter. Two years earlier, she had grabbed a one-year-old baby by the legs, shook her and dropped her on her head, resulting in the baby’s death. Other incidents include: abuse of children leading to hospitalization at two separate Taichung daycares in 2018, as well as the death of an 11-year-old boy in a Miaoli orphanage in 2016.
The boy had been thrown violently to the ground by a caregiver following an argument, police said at the time.
An editorial titled “Childcare system needs overhaul” published by the Taipei Times on April 8, 2020, attributed the situation to a system that prioritizes examinations over practical training, low pay for childcare workers and overburdened childcare centers that lead to burnout.
“How can a worker in a center with a caregiver-to-child ratio of 1:5 only be paid about NT$20,000? … even the most compassionate, patient and adoring childcare workers become burned out under [such] poor working conditions,” the editorial said.
The accused caregiver was arrested this week, and cited low pay and work-related stress as factors that led to her alleged actions.
Pay in many sectors is notoriously low, but given the increasingly dire birthrate in the country, it would seem particularly pressing to address the shortage, work conditions and training of childcare providers.
First, childcare workers should be required to undergo practical training as part of their education, which would ideally put them up against the most challenging childcare scenarios. They should also be required to shadow experienced, certified caregivers for the first year of employment, and undergo a psychological evaluation before being certified.
Second, caregivers should receive compensation commensurate with their challenging work, which could involve working long hours, communicating with parents, cleaning daycare facilities, feeding and changing children’s diapers and potentially dealing with children’s behavioral challenges. Daycares should also be sufficiently staffed to allow caregivers to monitor and support each other.
Finally, laws should be amended so that childcare workers who commit abuse leading to the death of children are subject to child murder charges.
To prevent harm to children, we must create an environment that supports caregivers’ needs and is intolerant of abuse. Lack of childcare resources has been cited by some people as what put them off having children. Improving these would benefit prospective parents and childcare workers, and could prevent the abuse of children.
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will stop at nothing to weaken Taiwan’s sovereignty, going as far as to create complete falsehoods. That the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never ruled Taiwan is an objective fact. To refute this, Beijing has tried to assert “jurisdiction” over Taiwan, pointing to its military exercises around the nation as “proof.” That is an outright lie: If the PRC had jurisdiction over Taiwan, it could simply have issued decrees. Instead, it needs to perform a show of force around the nation to demonstrate its fantasy. Its actions prove the exact opposite of its assertions. A
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
RSS