A Year of Human Rights Covenants: Great Leap for Taiwan
National Human Rights Commission, Taiwan
After the IRC issued the concluding observations
2022 and participated in the international review
we immediately held a post-sessional forum
CRC during November 14–16, 2022.
on Taiwan’s second national report on CRPD,
with the League for Persons with Disabilities;
Eden Social Welfare Foundation; and Taiwan
Society for Disability Studies to exchange
opinions on topics including (1) the dispute
over deinstitutionalization: the feasibility of
practicing the CRPD General Comment No.
5 (2017) and the incremental preparation for
institutional transition; (2) the requirements
to promote accessibility in public and private
spheres and General Comment No. 2 (2014);
(3) the supported decision-making (SDM)
for neurocognitive disorder / development of
right to freedom of expression, legal behavior
and other topics; and (4) implementation and
oversight mechanism of CRPD: exploration of
the role of the government and the public and
General Comment No. 7 (2018). We invited
three IRC experts of the CRPD national report to
the forum as objective third parties to share the
experience of their own countries and exchange
opinions with people with disabilities, group
representatives, experts, and scholars in Taiwan.
To oversee the implementation, we would
continue to track the progress of the executive
action plans based on the concluding
observations of international reviews. We
would propose specific recommendations and
collaboration, establish an oversight framework
based on the concluding observations as quickly
as possible and ensure the full participation of
the civil society groups, particularly persons with
disabilities and the organizations representing
them.
c. Convention on the Rights of Children
We published the Independent Opinion on
the Second National Report on the CRC
(Independent Opinions on the CRC) on April 1,
committee of the Second National Report on
It was the first time we assessed Taiwan’s
fulfillment of its obligations for the CRC and made
recommendations of improvement for legislation
and policies non-conforming to the CRC. We
also submitted our independent opinion to the
IRC members.
In order to draw up our Independent Opinions on
the CRC, we made reference to the Concluding
Observations on the First Report of the ROC/
Taiwan on the Implementation of CRC (2017)
and the Second CRC National Report (2021).
Moreover, starting from September 2021, we
widely invited children, adolescents, experts
and academics of children rights, and agency
representatives to participate in meetings
organized by us across Taiwan. The topics
discussed were child labor, rights of persons
with disabilities, student rights, rights of minority
groups, and children’s digital rights. First-hand
opinions from children, adolescents, and civic
groups were therefore collected. Based on
efforts mentioned and Control Yuan’s reports on
the human rights of children and adolescents
in the past decade, we focused on analyzing
and understanding of current challenges for the
CRC and possible difficulties embedded in the
system.
The main points of our Independent Opinions on
the CRC are as follows:
i. Marking out by special reports the importance
of the following three major topics regarding
COVID-19 pandemic and newly emergent
children’s rights:
●
Children’s rights under COVID-19 pandemic
●
Children’s digital rights
●
Alternative care for children
National Human Rights Commission 2022 Annual Report
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