Article 7 Children with disabilities
Currently, decisions on matters relating to children with disabilities are mainly based on the opinions of parents, guardians and relevant professionals, instead of actively listening to and engaging the children themselves. We recommend that the government should provide a supported decision-making mechanism that is suitable for children’s age and maturity, as stipulated under Article 7(3) of CRPD, in order to ensure the right of children to fully participate in and to express their own decisions.
Segmented, incoherent system of service in early intervention (in response to Paragraphs 28 and 29 of the State Report)
Early intervention involves cooperation across professional disciplines, and requires collaboration from parents, pediatricians or pediatric neurologists, child psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, physio- /vocational/speech therapists, special education teachers, social workers, and other professionals in order to provide the most appropriate plan for the development of children with disabilities. This requires the administrative support of government departments (including social, educational, and health departments), hospitals, relevant organizations and schools, in providing a system for the planning of various services, establishing a center for notification and referral services, and a joint center for evaluation, in order to realize the provision of early intervention service.
Currently, early intervention service at various stages and aspects face the problem of being segmented and incoherent. The State has not established a comprehensive system for reporting and case follow-ups (including recording the development process of children with disabilities, assessing whether they are receiving proper service in early intervention and compulsory education, whether the caregiver has enough knowledge for providing care and awareness on the existence of advisory, support and referral services and so on). This results in a lack of supportive plan for integrated services targeted at children with disabilities. Moreover, given the imbalance in distribution of resources between urban and rural areas, most parents would transfer their registered address to areas with better resources, leading to a discrepancy between registered address and residential address for children with disabilities. Not only would the household registration office find it difficult to monitor the actual residential place of these children and to follow-up on cases, the children with disabilities themselves may not be able to take advantage of services provided locally (e.g. rehabilitation buses).
We observe that due to the myth of a ‘golden window for cure’, many children who were judged as being slow in their development have long experienced tremendous physical and psychological stress and pain while receiving early intervention. Therefore, we have some doubt as to what medical experts have considered as ‘progress’. If a child needs to undergo such great stress in treatment in order to meet the standards of ‘progress’ as defined by the adults, we question if this is keeping the best interests of the child as primary consideration as required by Article 7(2) of the CRPD.
We recommend:
Once a child’s disability has been diagnosed and identified as such, the State should initiate a mechanism of communication chain, involving the departments of household registration, social affairs, health, police, and education, in order to establish a comprehensive reporting and referral mechanism, to ensure that children with disabilities will all receive the care, assistance and support as they should receive during each stage of their growth and development.
Every child with disability should have one or more social worker to provide long-term service and consultation. When it comes to service and support for Children with disabilities, there should be no difference between urban and rural areas. In allocating budget, the State should apply standards of equality in the support of these services and related facilities for Children with disabilities regardless of their location.
With regards to the rights of access to healthcare for children with disabilities, please refer to Paragraphs 204-206 of Article 25 of this Report.
Neglected right of Children with disabilities to play
Regardless of whether a public playground is established by private or public funds (including parks, school compounds, dedicated playgrounds, etc.), there should be barrier-free facilities adapted for use by children, such as toilets, tables and chairs, counters, and information signage. The intended facilities and equipment of such playgrounds (game equipment) have to incorporate inclusive designs to enable children with disabilities to interact and enjoy themselves with other companions. Stationary spaces of display or performance should also consider the right to equal participation for children as performers or as audience.
With regard to the capacity of children in mobility and the issue of assistive devices, refer to Paragraphs 158-160 of Article 20 of this Report.
Rights of children with epilepsy (responding to Paragraph 31 of the State Report)
Although the Ministry of Education indicated in the State Report that there are policies to protect the rights of children with disabilities to attend schools, many of these policies were not implemented. It is difficult for children with multiple disabilities to attend schools in the vicinity of their homes, and it is not uncommon for them to be bullied in schools. Take children with refractory epilepsy as an example, because of limitations in mobility, frequent episodes of attack, and intractable medical conditions, they encounter difficulties in daily lives and schools. Families who are unable to take care of the children have to seek assistance at nursing homes, but are often rejected because of the severity of their conditions. The support and care services stipulated in Article 50 of the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act were inadequate for the families, consequently children with epilepsy often could not receive timely treatment and education. Regarding the environment for education, the Ministry of Education should enhance teachers’ ability to recognize symptoms of neurological disorders such as epilepsy, and equip them with the ability for emergency care of common types of epilepsy episodes such as generalized tonic-clonic seizures.
Sexual Abuse and Maltreatment in Special Education School & Institution (in response to Paragraph 36 of the State Report)
There have been many reports of sexual abuse, harassment and use of physical punishment in Special education schools and institutions. Teachers and administrative officers in these affected schools and institutions often attempt to resolve incidences of abuse through suppression and cover-ups, while the governing agencies in the Ministry Education take a passive stance. In the high profile case of systemic group sexual abuse committed in Tainan Special School, an investigation by the Humanistic Education Foundation found there were 164 sexual abuse and sexual harassment cases between 2009-2011 among a student population of just over 300. Out of these cases, 70 cases were never reported to the local authority in accordance to the law, 87 cases were not reported to the Ministry of Education, 44 were never investigated or dealt with by the school, while 17 were dealt with by the school in a manner contrary to the law. Merely 18 months after the initial investigation, the school reported a further 32 cases of sexual abuse or sexual harassment, clearly showing the problem was never properly investigated and resolved, and government agencies were still taking an administrative monitoring role, rather than actively investigating and taking appropriate actions. The Government should take active steps in reflecting in-depth the systemic problem that exists within the special education sector, formulate comprehensive response strategies in order to resolve the systemic and structural causes of abuse within the special education sector.
The existing structural deficiencies means the special education framework cannot cope and engage with incidents of sexual harassment and sexual abuse. Some of the causes include inadequate professional training of special education teachers and deficiencies in the certification and evaluation framework causing school staff unable to cope with reports of abuse; shortages in teaching and management staff means most schools adopt a centrally administrative scheme to manage issues, making them unable to respond to specific needs of individual students, or unable to effectively manage and monitor staff working in the school due to severe management pressure. Furthermore, the government funding to special schools remain inadequate, causing institutions to hide and suppress reports of sexual abuse and other inappropriate behaviors in fear that they will lose funding if the reports are publicized.
There is a lack of understanding towards persons with disabilities from the general public as well as among teachers, this leads to a dismissive attitude toward issues affecting persons with disabilities and a reluctance to proactively resolve problems. Students who lives in school and those who are institutionalized long term often do not receive proper sexual abuse education or awareness raising from the school, leading to victims of sexual abuse at the hands of other students or even teachers turning around to using sexual favor or to perpetrate sexual abuse for revenge. This vicious cycle within the group turns sexual abuse victim into sexual abuse perpetrators.
Students with intellectual impairment often cannot articulate their abuse clearly, causing them to end up being in the ‘black hole’ of reporting sexual abuse and mistreatment. During the five-year investigation of the Tainan Special School case, the investigator only focused on cases of abuse among students with hearing impairment and ignored the possible abuse perpetrated against the over 150 students with intellectual impairment.
Ministry of Education’s disciplinary actions against the teachers and administrative staff involved in the case of Tainan Special School was inadequate and insufficient. Perpetrators only received warnings or had demerits recorded against their record. Further, the Ministry of Education Gender Equality Committee’s investigation into the case uses dismissive language in their findings to explain causes of serious sexual assault allegations: “Teaching staff lacks the requisite sensitivities towards gender equality issues”, “boarding students supervisor and bus guardian were ignorant and careless in their attitude”, “School was not able to protect the physical security of the victims, or lack the willingness to engage with victim’s concerns”, “School failed to provide adequate and sufficient counselling services tailored to the students affected”, “some teachers lack adequate sign language skills causing miscommunications between students and teachers”. Given the seriousness of the sexual abuse allegations, the findings of the government investigation and the disciplinary actions shows a lack of seriousness taken by the government in tackling sexual abuse in special education schools. This is in contradiction of Article 7, paragraph 36 of the State report, which stated that “the Criminal Code has a special punishment increase provision to strengthen the protection of children and people with disabilities in sexual assault cases”.
Other than sexual assault cases, there have also been cases where special education teachers have received criminal sanctions after excessive physical punishment of their students. There have also been many reports of special school staff perpetrating physical abuse and violence against their students. In 2013, the Humanistic Education Foundation received several complaints of physical abuse from special schools in Taichung and Tainan, but in most cases, the school adopts a deny and stall tactic to respond to these allegations raised by the foundation. We recommend that in order to protect special needs students’ right to education and to ensure they can receive that education free from fear, the Government should actively formulate substantive and meaningful actions to prevent this all abuse from repeating itself in impunity.
We recommend: Special education schools have the primary objective of providing a suitable and adapted learning environment for students with disabilities and special needs. This should be achieved through appropriate teaching tools and pedagogy as well as with specially qualified teachers who are passionate and patient, allowing the students with disabilities to learn and develop skills in independent living as well as making future contribution to society in a safe and professional environment. If the school fails in its duty to provide the necessary learning environment, the Government should consider allowing professional groups who are not part of the government educational system to take over the schools. The Government should also increase and emphasizes the responsibility of the school system in the caring, protection, and education of students with disabilities, and severely punish school officials who fail in their duty, through appropriate disciplinary measures, dismissals, or a permanent ban on teaching. We recommend the Government and relevant educational agencies can work together with Special education schools and institutions to properly reflect and reform any potential for harm within the special education framework to develop and implement appropriate protection mechanism to ensure abuses within the school never occur again.