The Control Yuan on Saturday urged the Ministry of Education to do more to prevent the sexual abuse of student athletes after a report revealed 548 complaints alleging contraventions of the Gender Equity Education Act (性別平等教育法) in sports programs since 2014.
Control Yuan members Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠), Hsiao Tsu-yu (蕭自佑) and Jao Yung-ching (趙永清) said in a statement that the ministry must do more to combat abuse in athletics programs.
The Control Yuan reviewed records of complaints made to education authorities involving athletics classes and sports teams at primary and secondary schools.
Photo: Hsieh Chun-lin, Taipei Times
Students participating in athletics programs are at an increased risk of abuse due to the power imbalance inherent in the student-coach relationship, the Control Yuan members said in a report.
Baseball, basketball, judo, taekwondo, and track and field are some of the programs that had the most complaints in the nation’s education system, the report said.
Part-time coaches are poorly supervised, receive no standardized gender-equality training and their hiring is governed by an “interpretation of law” document instead of regulations, it said.
While the ministry has established regulations to govern the hiring of full-time coaches, its materials for gender-equality training is oversimplified and outdated, it added.
About 60 percent of K-12 students in special sports programs board at their schools, despite a ministry policy preference for elementary and junior-high schools to not provide living arrangements, it said.
As a result, school dormitories for athletics programs have no official staff and are essentially unregulated, making them potential hotbeds of abuse, it said.
The ministry should recognize that there are students in athletic programs that live at schools, and it therefore must create regulations to protect their safety, it added.
Such oversight is also necessary for temporary lodging for students when they are competing in sports events, it said.
Students in special sports programs or on teams often live and travel together, meaning that rules must be in place to prevent or address bullying from other students or abuse from coaches, the report said, adding that the ministry should review policies to police athletics in other countries.
Students in athletics programs should also be educated on body autonomy and gender equality, it said.
The ministry’s Sports Administration and K-12 Education Administration must improve interagency cooperation in protecting young athletes, it added.
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
RSS