Taipei, April 2 (CNA) A member of Taiwan's national human rights institution urged the government on Friday to amend a law to ban corporal punishment at home, saying the number of child and adolescent abuse cases had risen significantly in Taiwan in recent years.
The number of cases involving minors being abused reached a five-year high of 12,610 in 2020, said Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華), who is a member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) under the government's watchdog body Control Yuan, at a press conference Friday.
The largest number of abuse cases involving minors occurred at home, Yeh said, drawing data from the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW). In 2020, one in five abuse cases against minors involved children under the age of 6, she added.
According to MOHW data, the number of reported child and adolescent abuse cases rose from 9,461 in 2016 to 12,610 in 2020.
In 2020, 7,992 abuse cases involving minors, or 63.37 percent of the total, were reported as having taken place at home, and about 44.83 percent of at-home abuse cases involved physical violence, the data showed.
Describing the MOHW data as "shocking," Yeh called on the government to follow in the footsteps of Taiwan's neighbors Japan and South Korea to revise the Civil Code and outlaw corporal punishment at home, as part of efforts to reduce abuse cases involving children and adolescents.
Currently, the Civil Code stipulates that "parents may, within the limit of necessity, inflict punishment upon their children."
The government can also introduce the practice of home visits by social or health workers to families with newborn children, Yeh said, adding that this could facilitate early detection of child abuse.
Commenting on Yeh's advice, Cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) told CNA Saturday that the Cabinet would instruct the MOHW and the Ministry of Justice to look into the matter.
Although parents can punish their children under the current Civil Code, they cannot inflict "physical and mental abuse" on them, as stipulated in the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act, Lo said.
Currently, Taiwan's law prohibits corporal punishment on school campuses.
The NHRC also issued an "independent opinion" report on Friday to comment on two state reports issued by Taiwan's government in 2016 and 2020, respectively, about its implementation of the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Despite not being a U.N. member, Taiwan adopted the convention and introduced the Implementation Act of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2014 in an attempt to bring children's rights and protections in line with international standards.
