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June 20, 2011
Thursday, June 16, 2011---Taipei
First Lady, Hannah Jurelang Zedkaia, today visited the Children and Women’s Protection Division at the Ministry of Interior, Republic of China (Taiwan), and came away very impressed with the program.
The First Lady was met by Counselor and Executive Secretary for Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, Hui-Jiuan Chien, who conducted a 45 minute power presentation on the statistics of domestic violence in Taiwan and the program that aims to help, decrease, and prevent the occurrence of domestic violence in the country.
According to Chien, there has been a 40% increase in domestic violence occurrences from 2005 to 2010 as the numbers jumped from 60,965 cases to 98,720 cases. Of the 23 million people of Tawian, 11 million are women and as the charts showed, female victims of sexual assault mostly occurred between the ages of 12-17 years of age with 4,045 cases in 2010. The highest rates of domestic violence occurred between the ages of 30 to 39 years, or the ‘marriage years,’ which indicated that most of the domestic violence cases occurred in the family.
The figures also indicated that child abuse cases have also risen and now stands at 2.8/1000 or a reported 18,454 cases in 2010. Types of child abuse includes neglect, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, abandon, physical abuse, and ‘other’ types of abuse, with physical and neglect types of abuse getting the bigger pieces of the pie chart at 35% and 24% respectively.
In response, the Taiwan government since 1973 has passed multiple laws aimed at dealing with domestic violence, including Children Welfare Act 1973,1993, Youth Welfare Act 1989, Sexual Assault Crime Prevention Act 1997, Domestic Violence Prevention Act 2003, and the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act, 2005.
One of the principal results of the passing of these Acts and the work of the domestic unit has been the mandatory reporting and synchronization of efforts by medical, educational, police, judicial, childcare, social, psychotherapist, labor, and a multitude of other personnel, both government and non-government, in protecting women and children and preventing domestic violence.
Chien went on to explain organizational structure of the unit and its 113 hotline, which intercepted calls from the general public regarding ongoing or possible domestic violence cases which are then investigated by a domestic violence crimes unit.
The First Lady was very impressed with the whole set-up and also conveyed the growing concern regarding increasing suicide cases in the Marshall Islands and invited future cooperation with the domestic unit here in Taipei.
The First Lady was accompanied by Mrs. Julia Li, ROC Ambassador to the RMI, George Li’s wife, as well as, Mrs. Herine Kabua, Mrs. Lynda Muller, Mrs. Neijon Edwards, and Mrs. Yolanda Lodge-Ned.
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