Graduation Thesis

No. Thesis Student Abstract
1. Ending Parental Violence Against Children— Examing Parental Responsibilities from the Perspective of Children's Rights   Huang, Shao-Yun

As the awareness of human rights increases in Taiwan, there is a growing emphasis on children’s rights. People believe that parents won’t spoil their children nowadays. But in reality, shocking headlines about child abuse still abound in daily life. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health and Welfare on types of abuse against children, more than half is attributed to physical and mental abuse, indicating that while awareness of children's rights is on the rise in our country, the use of violence against children remains prevalent.
In the present day, Article 1085 of Civil Code in Taiwan stipulates that “Parents may, within the limit of necessity, inflict punishment upon their children.” granting parents a certain disciplinary authority to punish their children for the purpose of correction, and in fact enables them to exert a certain degree of violence as a form of discipline.

Although the law prohibits physical and mental abuse in the “Children and Youth Welfare and Rights Protection Act”, the intensity of this regulation falls short of meeting the Convention's requirement to eliminate all forms of violence. It wasn't until 2023, after years of advocacy and promotion, that the Ministry of Justice proposed an amendment to Article 1085 of the Civil Code. However, the amendment has not yet passed the third reading in the Legislative Yuan, and even if it does, there is still a long road ahead after the amendment.

The concept of Article 19 of “Convention on the Rights of the Child” (CRC) emphasizes to fully respect children’s personalities. The behaviors prohibited in paragraph 1 are not limited to all form of abuse but includes neglect, maltreatment, exploitation, etc. As for paragraph 2 mentions protective measures, emphasizing the implementation of social programmes and the prevention of violence. In 2014, the Legislative Yuan passed the “Convention on the Rights of the Child Implementation Act”, incorporated the Convention into domestic law. To fulfill our obligations under the CRC, relevant measures should be taken to create a social environment that allows children to grow up in free, safe, and happiness.

The health development of children and the rights of parents to discipline are currently facing challenges. This study based on the rights in the “Convention on the Rights of the Child,” including the rights of children to be free from all forms of violence, cruel or degrading punishment, the right to health, and the right to development.Subsequently, by researching international interpretations of parental discipline and learning from New Zealand’s experience of law reforms in parental discipline, to reflect the current state of parenting in Taiwan and the necessity of amending the law to eliminate all forms of violence against children. Moreover, there should be active efforts to educate the general public in non-violent parenting methods. Hoping this study could serve as a basis for evaluating our legal provisions and as a reference for future policy development and legal amendments. The ultimate research objective is to end the cycle of domestic violence and establish an environment where children can be treated as complete individuals and grow up in free, safe and happiness. 

 2.  Advancing Substantive Gender Equality – Single Mothers who Struggle Between Family and Work  Lin, Yan-Ru “Act of Assistance for Family in Hardship” is one of the main legal sources in our country that safeguards single-parent families. The amendment in 2009 expanded the scope of protection to include males; however, since the amendment, the majority of applicants over the years have still been women, constituting nearly ninety percent. Apart from gender pay gap, gender gap of labor force participation rates, and the fact that women often bear a significant amount of unpaid domestic labor, single mothers navigating the intersection of "female" and "divorced" face a more challenging and unequal situation compared to married women and single fathers. Unfortunately, Article 4, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 5 of “Act of Assistance for Family in Hardship” uses work capability as a condition, disproportionately excluding single mothers who are in economically disadvantaged situations but have to balance family and work independently.

This study adopts the perspective of substantive gender equality under CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) to examine the proactive obligations that the Taiwanese government should fulfill in safeguarding single mothers. It reviews the legislative and amendment processes of “Act of Assistance for Family in Hardship”, application status, and the provisions of Article 4, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph 5, which pertains to work capability. The aim is to explore the rationale behind the work capability requirement specified in Subparagraph 5 of Article 4.

To improve the situation of single mothers and enhance their substantive equality, it is essential to systematically eliminate the structural barriers they face when balancing family and work independently. Particularly for single mothers with disadvantaged economic conditions, ensuring their participation in the workforce and the ability to choose the type of work should be safeguarded, without their eligibility for state assistance affecting these choices. Through both state support and their own employment efforts, single mothers can break free from hardship, ultimately elevating their substantive equality status. 
3. The dialogue between LGBTQ teachers' practice in school and natality in education of Hannah Arendt Lang, Yu-Ching

Hannah Arendt believes that in common world where people live together, only by constantly renewing the world through the creativity brought by new born can the world continue to maintain vitality and become more suitable for human survival and habitation. Arendt's educational perspective includes inheritance and innovation. Educators try their best to introduce many faces of the existed world to learners, so that learners have the opportunity to recognize and think from different perspectives, and coexist in the same world with educators, therefore, the power of natality may unfold.

Inspired by the natality perspective from Arendt, this article believes that the educational practice of LGBTQ teachers can be the key to inheriting and expanding the LGBTQ culture in school. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews, this article invited three lesbians, two bisexuals and two gay men, a total of seven junior high school teachers, to present how LGBTQ teachers interact and negotiate with the existing gender culture in school in the education scene. In the process, LGBTQ teachers transfer LGBTQ culture little by little in school through words and deeds.

 4. Charles R. Beitz’s Perspectives on the Political Practice of Human Rights 
Ho, Yen-Yi 

This study explores the evolution of, and debate over, human rights in the field of philosophy by examining Charles R. Beitz’s view of human rights in political practice and reflecting on what is the best way to understand human rights. The scope of this study ranges from earlier philosophers’ discussion and understanding of human rights solely in metaphysical terms and theories to the modern attempt by Beitz to consider human rights as a phenomenon of political practice.

Beitz argues that the most important function of human rights in practice is to justify external intervention to protect individuals from human rights violations when a state fails to discharge its duties or becomes incompetent. This function is described as the “two-level model” by Beitz. At the outset, this paper respond to the views of four philosophers, namely Cristina Lafont, Peter Schaber, Rainer Forst, and John Tasioulas, who trying to open the dialogue between diverse approaches. While Beitz’s ideas about human rights place more emphasis on the level of practice in comparison to previous philosophical discourse on human rights, he develops a new approach to the understanding of human rights from a political perspective.

 
 5. Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices about Dental Care regarding HIV-infected Patients: A Pilot Study among Taiwanese Dentists 
 Tseng, Yu-Hsuan

The objective of this study was to propose a framework of Taiwanese dentist with refusal to treat HIV-infected patient by retrospective participant observation and to find factors associated to willingness of treating HIV-infected patients by knowledge, attitudes, and practices survey. In this study, willingness to treat HIV-infected patients consisted of 3 items:

1) Selective willingness of treating HIV-infected patients based on their symbolic ethic groups.

2) The willingness when patients had disclosed their HIV status.
3) The willingness when patients had not disclosed their HIV status.

By retrospective participant observation, the researcher proposed “ A framework of Taiwan dentist with refusal to treat HIV-infected patient. “ from her observation and participating in social media forums with dentists and the work experience since 2017 in a specialized dental department for HIV-infected patient in Taipei. In this framework, Taiwanese dentists refused and referred HIV-infected patient based on a 1st-tier misconception of infection control protocol and knowledge on caring HIV/AIDS. Succeedingly, dentists developed a 2nd-tier misconception of the necessity of HIV status disclosure to deliver sufficient care. The PharmaCloud System plays a role in this framework as it provides an alternative way of disclosure. HIV/AIDS stigma also showed its impacts in this framework.

A total of 618 dentists participated in the knowledge, attitudes, and practices vi survey during March to July 2022. This study showed that 67% of the respondents have had given treatment to HIV-infected patients. 50% of the respondents will giving treatment to all types of symbolic ethic group while drug-injected patients are still the lowest willingness group. 81% of the respondents will give treatment when patients had disclosed their HIV status. When patients had not disclosed their HIV status, the willingness proportion declined to 29%.

The characteristic of dentists who have higher willingness of giving treatment to HIV-infected patients were: younger, working at a more HIV-friendly faculty, better knowledge (including basic HIV/AIDS knowledge, transmission and HIV/AIDSrelated oral manifestation), better attitudes, more friendly on patients’ disclosure of HIV status, having had treated HIV-infected patients and more frequently, lower level of personal precaution. Dentist worked at hospitals showed more willingness and better results in all other variants than dentists at clinics.

 
6.  The Case Study on Article 52 , Paragraph 4 of the Employment Service Act by Wilson's policy classification  Chen, Ai-Tin

In 2016, the 9th Legislative Yuan amended the Article 52, Paragraph 4 of the Employment Services Act, which to remove the only one line "Foreigners engaged in the work specified in Article 46, Paragraph 1, Subparagraphs 8 to 10, shall be allowed to re-enter the country for work after leaving the country one day". However, it is not the first time for this bill to be brought out. From the 7th Legislative Yuan to the 9th Legislative Yuan, it has been brought out repeatedly. The 8th Legislative Yuan was so close to pass the bill, but it was stopped by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus. At the 9th Legislative Yuan, it finally passed the bill but they also encountered some difficulties. It took the Legislative Yuan seven years to amend the bill.

This study uses the interest group politics issue by Wilson's policy classification as framework and uses the content analysis and the in-depth interviews to sort out the competition between the interest groups which support and oppose the bill. And this study tried to find out how the 9th Legislative Yuan passed the bill which has been paused for several times since the 8th Legislative Yuan.

The study found out the international image of the government may be the key to break the difficulty of passing the amendment of the Article 52, Paragraph 4 of the Employment Services Act, which is a case corresponds with the interest group politics issue. Especially after receiving EU's yellow card on Illegal, Unreported and iii Unregulated (IUU) fishing, the government also received lots of attentions from the international society.

Although the EU's yellow card has nothing to do with the Article 52, Paragraph 4 of the Employment Services Act. But what comes in to common is that they both are in a matter of the country's image, especially when the amendment of the Article 52, Paragraph 4 of the Employment Services Act is about migrant workers’ human rights.

 7. Nation's Obligation of Human Right Education :The Case of Taiwan's LGBT-inclusive Education in GEEA  Tsai, Sung-Che

The Gender Equity Education Act(GEEA) in Taiwan has been in effect for almost two decades, yet LGBT-inclusive education remains a disputed subject between the LGBT-friendly and anti-LGBT communities. In 2018 anti-LGBT groups caledl for a referendum and successfully force Taiwan government remove the word "LGBT" from the title of GEEA. Their success has made LGBT-friendly community frustrated.


The thesis considers, from rom the perspective of state obligation, why a measure designed to promote equality was defeated so easily. This analysis then draws on GEEA's history in Taiwan, John Rawl's Justice theory , Judith Shklar's Injustice theory, and the principle of equality and the non-discrimination. Interviews were conducted with front-line workers in LGBT-inclusive education, in order to gather their experience and views. The thesis tries to review LGBT-inclusive education in Taiwan, and puts forward suggestions for the future. 

 8. Effectiveness of International Human Rights Convention Commitments for Refugee Crisis Control Cheng, Ho-Kit  The refugee crisis is a cross-national humanitarian crisis between the country of origin and the host country. The international human rights convention regime with the United Nations human rights conventions as the backbone has grown continuously in international legitimacy since the Second World War. It has become one of the most widely accepted human rights protection mechanisms by the international community. This thesis argues that the international community has incentives to monitor the human rights practice of state parties through the international human rights conventions to control the refugee crisis. By using the quantitative method, this thesis investigates the effect between the number of ratifications of United Nations human rights treaties and the frequency of refugee crises occurrence. The results show that there is a significant negative correlation between the number of human rights treaties ratified by autocratic regimes and the incidence of refugee crises. This thesis concludes that the promotion of international human rights convention commitments is an effective means for the international community in refugee crisis control. Encouraging autocratic regimes to participate in the international human rights regime is an effective way to improve their human rights practices, which goes against the argument that autocratic regimes do not comply with international human rights convention commitments in general. 
 9.  The Marriage and Equal Rights Protection for the Stateless People:From Taiwanese-Tibetan Family to Safeguard for the Whole Lin, Pei-Ying 

According to the UNHCR’s Refugee Population Statistics in 2020, the refugee
population has reached a historic high record, up to 82.4 million people. Among this population, there are around 4.2 million stateless people. This number was provided by 94 countries, which is only part of countries around the world. We could be reasonably estimated that the actual population of global stateless people is higher than the statistic number. On the basis of the freedom of marriage also applies for the marriage between a citizen and stateless person, the government holds the responsibility to protect their rights from violation.


Through literature review and interviews with married couples, we learned that
the Taiwanese-Tibetan families are the most frequently discussed cases regarding the stateless spouse. Mostly, these marriages are formed by Taiwanese citizens and Tibetans who were exiled to India from China. Since the Refugee Act is legislated neither in Taiwan nor India, Tibetan spouses are identified as stateless people in these two countries.


In the early stage, there was no applicable law for Tibetan spouses in Taiwan and they should wait for a case-by-case examination for their residence visa. In 2012, the government established a regulation for Taiwan resident visa applications for Indian IC travel document-holding Spouse of ethnic Tibetan citizens. Although there was an applicable law, the observation period set in the regulation still cannot fully protect their rights. It was until 2017, the regulation was canceled and all Tibetan spouses were allowed to apply for their residence visa the same way as other foreign spouses.


However, this immigrant regulation doesn’t apply to all the stateless people. The case-by-case examinations remain for other stateless spouses who aim to apply for a resident visa in Taiwan, and this may have them undergo the same experience as Tibetan spouses had been through. By the interview with the legislative assistant who had been helped the stateless spouse with a resident visa in Taiwan, it reveals the policy dilemma that makes by the case-by-case examination.


From the responsibilities of state parties of international conventions to the right protection in the constitution, this paper discusses rights of equality, marriage and,family at a legal level. In addition, this paper reexamines the relative regulations for stateless spouses in Taiwan and analysis whether the existing regulation causes discrimination on stateless spouses and discrimination by association on the Taiwanese spouse. Then, this paper will conclude with some suggestions for the revision of current regulations. 

 10. Invisible White Terror: Representation of Persons with Disabilities and Human Rights Museums   Wu, Pei-Ju

Based on the Nazi history of human rights violations and the works museums are working for transitional justice, the thesis points out the current situation that the Holocaust victims with disabilities are still invisible. Similarly, after being a democratic country, Taiwan hasn’t paid enough attention to stereotyping of political victims during the White Terror for 30 years. Therefore, in order to not only search for truth and justice, but also let everyone participate in society on an equal basis with others to reflect on historical justice, it’s urgent to comprehensively involve multiple groups, especially victims with disabilities who are suffering from stigma in society.

In view of human rights museology and The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the paper proposes principles for human rights museums to represent disability in accordance with the former theories by analyzing how the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and the National Human Rights Museum implement. What’s more, Lyu Wun-Cheng, Syu Si-Tu and Ning Ren speak up about their experiences of being a person with disabilities due to or during the White Terror, which is to make invisible visible and fulfill the protection for universal human rights and freedoms. 

 11. The Necessity of the Right of Resistance to be Protected by Positive Law Using Social Movements as an Example Huang, Chun-Wei 

This article believes that even in a country with a complete democratic system, it
is necessary to maintain a system of the right to resistance, because theoretically a
perfect democratic system does not exist, and the right of resistance is an insurance topreserve the system. Of course, under a democratic system, means such as assemblies, demonstrations, strikes, and referendums are all methods of resistance guaranteed under the current law, and they are also important means to embody freedom of speech under the democratic rule of law. Most of them use the concept of "civil disobedience" to fight. If it is not an emergency, non-violent and moderate resistance may be the best method.

However, non-violent mild resistance can only be established when the party in power also abides by the rules of the law. Therefore, in the face of excessive law enforcement police officers and regimes ignoring constitutional order, the strategy of non-violent resistance in social movements is no longer the best action
criterion. At this time, the new choice of the activists is to re-empower the gradually
declining right of resistance. The goal may no longer be to establish a new regime, but
for the chaotic politics of those in power, the activists need more effective countermeasures. In order to ensure the continuation of democratic constitutionalism.


This article combs through the history of the development of the right of
resistance and the strategic changes of social movements, and attempts to answer the
most common questions about the use of the right of resistance in modern society: the necessity of the existence of the right of resistance under the existing democratic
system, and the passive use of force in social movements. The necessity of the right of resistance, the contradiction in the legal practice of the right of resistance, and the
necessity of the right of resistance to enter the positive law. 

12. The experience of Chinese human rights defenders utilizing the Convention Against Torture Ip, Chakra Although the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) provided suggestions on the methods of civil participation in UN human rights mechanism, it is still difficult to understand the skills and details of the participation process without practical experience. More importantly, under tyranny, the challenges faced by human rights defenders in China are more severe, and their personal safety is threatened at any time. An analysis of their experiences can provide a deeper insight into the flexibility of the civil participation and the division of labor in civil society. This study analyzes the experience of Chinese human rights defenders under the United Nations (UN) human rights treaty mechanism through participant observation, as well as the examination of the methods of participation and experiences of civil society before, during and after China’s fifth review of the UN Convention against Torture in 2015.

The study found defenders are generally disappointed with the civil engagement in UN human rights mechanism since an immediate impactful effect is nonexistent. Instead, the engagement is a long-term monitoring plan conducted by the international community as a means to build up transnational advocacy networks to put political pressure on the Chinese government. In addition, the study found that the way defenders participated can be distinguished by two methods, “proactive model” and “resonance model”. The former reforms or fights against human rights issues through legal systems and civic actions; the latter uses actions, reports, or case sharing to extend information to those with aligned ideologies with hopes of creating a resonance effect. In authoritarian countries, the boomerang effect may not be effective. Therefore, this article proposes the above two models to try providing strategic suggestions on how defenders can grasp the limited space to resist national human rights violations.
13. The Challenges of Collective Bargaining for Teachers' Unions in Taiwan Ou, Ming-Kai

Since the Amendment of three labor laws, i.e. the Trade Union Law, the Collective Agreement Law, the Settlement of Labor Disputes Law, in 2008-2010 and implement in 2011, teachers were given the rights to organize unions and bargaining. However, teachers don’t share the equals rights with other labors. As a result, teachers face numerous challenges during the process of collective bargaining.


The methods of the study are based on document analysis, survey studies and comparative research. By these methods, we can have a picture of how the implement of teacher’s labor rights works in Taiwan and in other countries. Also, by using the method of the right to justification proposed by Rainer Frost, we are able to testify if restraining teacher strikes are right or not.


Except for forbidding teacher’s striking right, there are also numerous causes make teachers signing collective agreement more challengeable. Such as plural labor union proposing collective bargaining at the same time, the recognition of public school teacher’s employer, the permission right of competent authority, the participation of superior unions and teacher unions are not able to reflect front-line teacher’s needs, these reasons are why signing collective agreement are difficult for teacher unions.

14. Review of Judge’s Individual Disciplinary Evaluation System of Taiwan by International Standards for Fair Trial Rights Hsiao, I-Min

Firstly, this thesis, by reviewing 34 international human rights documents, summarizes 12 procedural norms and 8 substantive norms relating to judicial discipline, and introduces the international standards for fair trial rights.


Secondly, the thesis analyzes the statistics of the Judicial Yuan in Taiwan. The results show two severe setbacks since the implementation of the Judges Act in 2011: the number of judge’s disciplines fell significantly and the scale of sanctions was markedly reduced. These setbacks are due to violations of the international standards for fair trial rights in the contents of the Judges Act and in the decisions of the Judge Evaluation Committee.


Finally, this thesis examines these setbacks by the international standards for fair trial rights. Most of the violations of procedural norms in the Judges Act were amended in 2019. It remains to be seen whether the amendments will prove to be useful. However, violations of substantive norms in the Judges Act are still needed to be revised as quickly as possible. The thesis recommends Judge Evaluation Committee to abandon the “core of trial” theory which is a paradox that cannot meet international standards. Pursuant to paragraph 2 of Article 30 of the Judges Act, the Committee should follow the international standards for fair trial rights to examine whether a judge’s behavior is arbitrarily abused or obviously illegal in a particularly serious situation. Only at the last stage of considering whether sanction should be applied, an overall review of “judicial independence” is necessary.


The thesis concludes that the judge’s discipline system is a basic guarantee and fair trial rights need more supporting measures. International standards have shown that a comprehensive professional evaluation system for judges is an efficient means of improving judicial quality, and can strengthen judicial accountability and public trust. This thesis calls for adding a new chapter of professional evaluation in the Judges Act or drafting the Judge Professional Evaluation Act as a measure to improve protection of fair trial rights in Taiwan.

15. Research of the application of ICCPR and ICESCR on Civil Law cases Jhong, Yi-Yun

Objectives of this study: This study investigates the origins and meaning of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights so that the ways in which they are used in Taiwan’s current judicial practice can be clarified. This helps in summarizing the methods by which the two conventions are used as a basis for reference.

These methods are then evaluated for their suitability for legislative significance in private law relationships to (a) understand the principles and purposes of these international conventions and the trend of their implementation in Taiwan’s judicial practice and (b) discuss which methods of usage are less in conflict with the original meaning of private law when the conventions governing public rights enter the field of private law, symbolized by autonomy and freedom. First, the purposes of these two conventions and how they originated are investigated. This helps us identify whether the use of these two conventions as references is in conflict with the private law practice in Taiwan. Next, a method of resolving conflict if any is developed. By supplementing the third-party effect of the fundamental rights in the constitution and administrative law, further in-depth analysis is conducted, followed by sorting the judgments made by referencing the two conventions as the basis in private law practice in recent years. Further, interviews with several professional judges and lawyers in the legal field are held seeking their opinion, while also consulting the relevant literature in the field of law to identify conflicts and differences if any between some of the court practices in Taiwan and the opinions of lawyers acting as agents ad litem. Finally, detailed proposals are put forth on how to apply these two conventions to private law practice in Taiwan.


Lastly, this research tries to address the possibility of both indirect and direct application and claims that the court should voluntarily apply the Convention, which covers the case fact and that it has to explain the framework and the factors to give the guideline and direction for future application in Taiwan. Currently the court has passed the law of Court Organic Act and The Administrative Court Organization Act and the highest court is going to establish great court to unify the legal interpretation. It is recommended that utilizing this resource carefully so that the court can learn from the interpretation for future similar case judgement.

16. Analyses of Liberty and Security of Psychosocial Disabilities by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities:Evaluating perceptions of Health Science Academia with International Standards Lin, Yi-Chueh
This study aims to analysis the principles of personal liberty and security rights for people with psychosocial disability and the criteria of using compulsory treatment in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It examines CRPD committee’s General Comments and Concluding Observations to understand international standards. This study then interviews three psychiatrists and reviews relevant literature from reliable sources and policies and Mental Health Law in Taiwan to examine whether there is a violation of the CRPD.

This study finds that in the current situation in Taiwan there are seven main spots that are not in consonance with international standards. These fields include (1) public media self-regulation; (2) definition of legal terms in mental health law; (3) compulsory admission and involuntary commitment; (4) procedures and environment of involuntary treatment; (5) restraint and seclusion patients faced; (6) medical decision making and judicial relief; (7) establishing mechanisms which are relevant to Mental Health Law, and allocating resources.
 
This study proposes several solutions to improve liberty and security rights of psychosocial disabilities. First, it is necessary to redefine the terms such as “compulsory admission” and “involuntary commitment”. Second, this study offers improvements and amendments to “person who determine whether further compulsory admission and involuntary commitment is necessary”, “recognizing procedure” for compulsory admission and involuntary commitment, “the right of medical judgment” for involuntary commitment, “medical decision-making agent” and “judicial relief”. Third, this study also suggests that relevant regulations of “restraint” and seclusion” should be clearer, and have more detailed time limitations. Fourth, it emphasis that vanquishing media stigma, improving procedures and environment of involuntary treatment, and allocating human and financial resources and establishing an independent monitoring mechanism are core elements of protecting the rights of people with psychosocial disabilities.
17. Examining Status Offense by the Convention on the Rights of the Child Lee. Ching-Yao

With the advancement of rights awareness in Taiwan, incorporations of international human rights treaties have continued been advanced. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the first international treaty for the consideration of children as subjects of rights. The Act to implement the CRC was passed on November 20, 2014, and accession to the CRC was signed by the President on May 16, 2016. The CRC therefore becomes an important prerequisite for children's rights in Taiwan.


The juvenile status offense policy has been implemented since martial law period. In 2019, the Legislative Yuan changed the term “status offense” to “risk exposure teenagers”, and added the concept of counseling first. However, this legislation still maintains the status offense in the juvenile justice system.


This study explores whether the status offense system is in accordance with the CRC and other UN documents related to protections of rights of children. Domestic legal amendments are also reviewed. This study found that incorporation of the CRC has an impact on the progress of the Juvenile Delinquency Act in Taiwan. However, whether to prevent the juvenile from being constrained into “status offense” framework dependents on the government’s follow-up measures and cooperation network. This study suggests that Taiwan can achieve a gradual approach of abolishing “status offense” or “risk exposure teenagers” to fully implement norms of the CRC.

 18. Working as Police Sweethearts: A Gendered Division of Labor in the Modern Police Force  Chu, Chia-Jong   This thesis examines the role of police sweethearts in the police force in Taiwan. A unique role for female police officers as police sweethearts has evolved owing to historical factors, relationships between the police and the media and a gendered division of labor within the police force. As part of their public relationship strategy, police authorities cause emotional stress among female officers by exploiting their physical female body for their work. The more female officers take on the role of sweethearts, the more likely they become a living proof of a gender stereotype. Simultaneously they experience a conflict between their professional work and their self-identity, which often leads to them not being recognized as qualified officers by their peers, supervisors or by the public. The study argues that, while the practice of police sweethearts may contribute extra benefits to the police force and even uphold the fundamental rights of socially disadvantaged groups and persons, yet it is focused on the services rendered by the police and publicity for their work rather than on fighting crime and has not brought about any change in occupational or organizational norms. Rather it suggest a conflict between the ideal police officer and current practice in Taiwan.

 

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