The Taipei City Government on Friday admitted to negligence over the handling of an alleged preschool sexual assault case in 2022, and said that two departments involved in the case would be investigated by a performance review committee.
A Taipei City Government official said the government would report the city’s education and social welfare departments for their negligence in dealing with the first report of allegations in 2022 that a preschool teacher sexually abused children, and also proposed 10 suggestions for improvement.
Preschool teacher Mao Chun-shen (毛畯珅), a son of the owner of Taipei Piramide School (私立培諾米達信義幼兒園), a private institution, in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義), was indicted in August last year on charges of sexual assault and offenses of forced obscenity against six girls.
Photo: CNA
Prosecutors said they found that Mao owned more than 600 sexually explicit images or videos of girls he allegedly abused, and that he had allegedly sexually assaulted at least 20 children at the preschool.
The court is expected to reach a verdict on these charges next month.
However, some parents in 2022 reported suspected sexual abuse by Mao. He was not suspended from teaching and the preschool was allowed to enroll new students, while prosecutors dropped the case, as nothing suspicious was seen in the preschool’s surveillance videos.
Prosecutors launced another investigation last year after more parents reported suspected sexual abuse of their children, after which Mao was indicted and detained.
The preschool was ordered to shut down in October last year.
After a public outcry because the suspect was allowed to continue teaching for a year after the first report in July 2022, the Control Yuan on Tuesday last week said it would investigate whether the Taipei City Government and the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office had handled the first report properly.
A Taipei City Government official said there were flaws in handling the case after having received the report in 2022, for which the city’s Department of Education and the Department of Social Welfare would be held accountable, and that the city government would turn the case over to the Control Yuan for investigation.
The administrative negligence of the two departments would be filed with the performance review committee for administrative punishment, they said.
The official said the city government has reviewed five main problems in handling the initial report, which were poor communication between departments, lack of a cooperative mechanism between departments, the education department’s failure to suspend the suspect from his job immediately, poor supervision of the preschool, and investigative personnel lacking knowledge and sensitivity to such cases.
The city government concluded that “the departments’ attitude was not proactive enough,” they said.
The official said the city government would also propose 10 steps to improve the handling of such cases, including the immediate suspension or dismissal of a suspect upon receiving allegations of sexual assault, the establishment of an emergency response task force, setting up a three-level notification operation procedure and a multi-level gatekeeping mechanism, expanding checks of preschool and childcare center workers’ criminal records, and setting up a precautionary supervision mechanism for preschools involved in sexual abuse incidents.
Other steps include establishing a platform to publicize a suspected child sexual abuse incident, allocating a budget to hire more investigative personnel and enhance investigative efficiency, broaden preschool teachers’ and department officials’ knowledge about preventing sexual abuse, setting up a specialized service for accompanying the victims, and suggesting that the central government amend laws to increase punishment, they said.
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
Taiwan on Friday said a New Zealand hamburger restaurant has apologized for a racist remark to a Taiwanese customer after reports that it had first apologized to China sparked outrage in Taiwan. An image posted on Threads by a Taiwanese who ate at Fergburger in Queenstown showed that their receipt dated Sunday last week included the words “Ching Chang,” a racial slur. The Chinese Consulate-General in Christchurch in a statement on Thursday said it had received and accepted an apology from the restaurant over the incident. The comment triggered an online furor among Taiwanese who saw it as an insult to the
ENROLLMENT STRATEGIES: NTNU focuses on English instruction to attract foreign students, and helps them with employment and internships, its president said The number of foreign students in the nation’s colleges and universities hit a five-year high last year, with National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) topping the list with the most international students, Ministry of Education data showed. Last year, 123,188 international students attended Taiwanese colleges and universities, 3,259 more than the previous academic year, the data showed. NTNU had the most international students, with 7,648 students, followed by the National Taiwan University’s 6,249, it showed. NTNU yesterday said that international students accounted for 12.05 percent of its degree students last year. The percentage of overseas Chinese students at the university has also been the highest
RSS