Attending kindergarten should be a wonderful experience for families, but a jarring case of recent alleged sexual predation reminds us that our children are vulnerable and require protection.
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As the Taipei City kindergarten sexual assault scandal continues to gain publicity, three members of the Control Yuan on Tuesday stated they will investigate whether the Taipei City Government has mishandled allegations of sexual abuse by a former teacher. Their statement accuses the government of not properly collecting evidence and obstructing previous inquiries. Emotions were high as they asked for truth and justice.
Taipei City Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) spoke on the matter, saying that though some of the incidents occurred during Ko Wen-je's (柯文哲) tenure, he is more than willing to take on the task of providing parents with some amount of peace.
Controversy is heightened due to revealed information that the teacher was reported to be sexually molesting children as early as July 2022 before being indicted in August 2023. Since that time, at least 20 more young girls are suspected to be victims, and further investigation has found more than 600 sexually explicit images or videos involving minors in his possession, including many taken within the past year.
Parents are blaming the city government for allowing more children to be abused in their failure to resolve this case. They say that the current policies, such as the Early Childhood Education and Care Act, protect the identities of the school and children and also inadvertently protect the offender, and because of this, justice cannot be properly served.
Chiang reportedly did not suspend the teacher even though amendments to the act should have given him the power to do so. In the past three days, the mayor’s negative rating has reached an unprecedented 44.4%. He calls on the central government to further discussions to modify the Early Childhood Education and Care Act to benefit sexual assault victims as soon as possible. Whether the parents accept these governmental actions as contrition in the wake of what’s happened to their children remains to be seen.