Child and Youth Rights Act to be Amended, Civil Groups Call for Upgrading to Ministry of Children and Families for Better Integration

(Central News Agency reporter Hsu Chih-wei, Taipei, 12th) The Ministry of Health and Welfare recently announced the draft amendment to the Child and Youth Welfare and Rights Protection Act. The National Education Action Alliance and the Taiwan Mental Health Alliance today called for the central competent authority to be upgraded to a 'Ministry of Children and Families' to facilitate cross-ministerial integration, and to establish a child and youth budget tracking mechanism and an independent child and youth rights oversight mechanism.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare recently announced the draft amendment to the 'Child and Youth Welfare and Rights Protection Act,' expanding the articles to 165, which is the most extensive full amendment since the Act's implementation. The National Education Action Alliance and the Taiwan Mental Health Alliance held a press conference today, stating that the amendment should not only increase responsibilities and penalties, but also address the level of the central competent authority and its cross-ministerial integration powers.

Wang Han-yang, chairman of the National Education Action Alliance, stated that child and youth issues are a national governance problem spanning education, health and welfare, policing, judiciary, labor, digital, culture, and local governments. Article 3 of the draft amendment to the Child and Youth Rights Act only states 'should fully cooperate' as the basis for cross-ministerial integration, but it does not clearly grant the central competent authority cross-ministerial persuasion rights, data retrieval rights, policy tracking rights, and project coordination rights.

Wang Han-yang mentioned that as legal responsibilities increase, if the competent authority remains a third-tier 'agency,' front-line workers will bear more pressure. Even if a Child and Family Support Agency is established in the future, it might become 'responsible without authority.' The KAI-KAI case reminds everyone that major child and youth incidents cannot rely solely on ex-post accountability; a responsibility chain and cross-system coordination mechanism must be established among central, local, outsourced agencies, and front-line workers.

Huang Ya-ling, representative of the Taiwan Mental Health Alliance, pointed out that child and youth mental health crises involve medical, educational, social welfare, family support, and digital risks. The current 'Department of Mental Health' and the future 'Child and Family Agency' are not explicitly granted the authority to coordinate cross-ministerial resources in their institutional design.

Huang Ya-ling believes that if there is no cross-ministerial integration mechanism for child and youth mental health, any amount of budget will be fragmented. The most fundamental solution is to upgrade the competent authority to a 'Ministry of Children and Families' to enable cross-ministerial integration.

The National Education Action Alliance and the Taiwan Mental Health Alliance also put forward three demands, calling for the explicit definition in the Child and Youth Rights Act that the central competent authority be upgraded to a second-tier 'Ministry of Children and Families'; the establishment of a child and youth budget tracking mechanism and the study of special funds or special accounts for child and youth budgets to prevent budgets from being scattered across various ministries, making them invisible and untraceable; and the establishment of an independent child and youth rights oversight mechanism to avoid administrative agencies from being both players and referees. (Editor: Chang Ya-ching) 1150512

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