professionals. The NHRC will continue to monitor the effectiveness of
early intervention policy implementation.
Sexual Health
100. Referring to §211 and Attachment 7-28 of the Second Report, the
NHRC found that the number of STIs per 100,000 teens in 2020 is 1.885
times higher than in 2016. Regarding §226(b) of the Second Report, the
NHRC learned from focus groups and discussions with government
agencies that schools and teachers tend to shy away from sex education
or sexual health issues, such as teaching how to use condoms or
contraception, in order to avoid protests or lawsuits lodged by parents.
101. §§226-229 of the Second Report omit the issue of sex education
materials for children with disabilities. Although the MOE currently
provides teaching materials on gender equality and sex education
designed for different disability groups, 82 they achieved limited
success.
102. Recommendations:
(1) The Government should collect children's opinions and review
whether the contents of teaching materials related to sex
education and sexual health curriculum meet the developmental
needs of children.
(2) The NHRC expects the Government to actively promote the
importance of sex education and sexual health courses in order to
reduce the pressure that teachers may be under when teaching
such topics.
Electronic Cigarette
103. The NHRC's follow-up of the Control Yuan investigation 83 revealed
that the sales of illegal e-cigarettes in Taiwan exceeded NT$128 million,
and this amount does not include sales that were not registered for tax
purposes. The NHRC also learned from children's forums that users and
sellers of e-cigarettes are getting younger, and one can simply use the
keyword "candy" to search online auction platforms and find a great
82
83
The Gender Equity Education website by the MOE.
https://www.gender.edu.tw/web/index.php/m5/m5_05_07_index
The Control Yuan investigation report approved on Jun 16, 2020 (Emerging Tobacco Products Lead
to Chaos).
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