Taiwan Child Maltreatment Atlas · 2025 data
Lumen Island — Taiwan Child Maltreatment Atlas
In the nights we do not see, someone is growing up.
In 2025, Taiwan recorded 136,592 child protection reports.
Each one is a night that had to be heard.
Hover a county · click to pin
New Taipei
21,788reports
+12.4% vs 2024
Taiwan
136,592reports
2025 national total
01 The Count
Every report is someone choosing not to look away. They come from a school counselling room, a hospital emergency ward, a police duty desk — and from a neighbour’s phone call.
2025 · child protection reports (under 18)
On average 374 reports enter the system each day. After social-worker assessment and triage, 9,898 children are recorded as victims. This is not all of it — only the part that was seen.
Reports are at a record high, yet victims are the lowest in seven years.
That is not evidence that abuse is falling — it is the difference in who is seen and who is believed.
9,898 victims in 2025 — 21.5% fewer than in 2020
02 The Map
Report counts are not a risk ranking. They mirror population size, urban–rural structure, the density of the social-safety net — and whether a place is willing to say “a family matter” out loud.
FIG. 01 — Taiwan, 22 counties2025 · Reports
The interactive map and county ranking appear online only; full figures for all 22 counties are in the table in chapter 09.
03 The Shape
The kinds of abuse and related problems recorded for 9,898 children in 2025. Physical wounds are the easiest to see; sexual and emotional wounds often surface much later.
ONE IN THREE
31.4%
About one in three victims
experienced sexual abuse.
Of the 3,109 victims in 2025, 2,657 were girls — 85.5%. In the 15–17 age band, girls make up the highest share of any age group.
04 The Age
Reports peak at 12–14. But 0–5-year-olds together make up a quarter of all victims — children who cannot yet put a sentence together.
| Age | Boys | Girls | Total |
|---|
0–5 years, 2,442 children.The age that needs the most protection is also the hardest to ask for it.
80.9% of victims aged 15–17 are girls.This is the highest share of any age group — and the age at which sexual and relationship harm is most often named.
12–14 is the peak, with 2,439 children.School, peers and the internet make silence easier to break.
05 The Witness
In 2025, 61,773 reports came from educational staff — close to one in every two. Schools are Taiwan’s most sensitive gatekeeper for children: kids spend some thirty hours a week there, and it is often where they first say what happens at home.
6.2%
Of every 100 reports,
only 6 do not come from a professional.
The remaining 8,502 non-statutory reports came from parents, neighbours, relatives and the children themselves. They have no duty to report — yet they are the people closest to the scene.
Teachers are not always there, and social workers are stretched.
What changes a child’s fate is often the neighbour whoasks one more question.
06 The Curve
From 2020 to 2025, reports grew 65.1% while victims fell 21.5%. This forking line is the thing on the map that most needs to be questioned.
Reports · 2020–2025
+65.1%
Victims of abuse
−21.5%
Deaths at home
19 people · 2025
Reports jumped 24.0% in 2023.The timing overlaps with the second phase of the social-safety net, integrated reporting channels, and public attention to several serious cases. More reports do not mean more harm.
Reports hit new highs in 2024 and 2025, while victims fell two years running.It may mean better triage — or that investigation and service capacity cannot keep up with reporting. Public data cannot answer this.
Deaths at home: 30 in 2024, 19 in 2025.The base is small, so year-to-year swings should not be over-read; it reminds us that the most extreme harm still happens.
| Year | Reports | Victims | Deaths |
|---|
07 The Night
The three passages below are adapted from public reporting and interviews with practitioners. People, ages and details have been recombined and de-identified; none is a single real case.
“Teacher, can I not go home tomorrow?”
In his contact book the boy wrote the sentence in phonetic symbols, then erased it with correction fluid. His homeroom teacher did not ignore the white smudge. She did not press him; she simply walked him to the school gate after class and talked about Pokémon for a long time. On the third day, he said it himself: the door at home gets locked at night.
Being seen sometimes means someone willing to stand still for five more minutes.
“That night I heard the child next door crying and crying.”
She lived in a forty-year-old walk-up. Through the thin wall, the crying ran from eight in the evening until eleven, with a man shouting in between. She hesitated for two days, afraid of being nosy. On the third day she called 113 and could only give the address and “something feels wrong”.
You do not need to be sure. You only need to say it.
“Four months old, and no weight gain.”
The baby was quiet when brought into the emergency room — unusually quiet. After weighing, the nurse looked again, then checked the growth curve once more. The doctor asked a few questions; the mother’s answers did not fit together. That night, the child did not go home.
Some calls for help have no sound, only numbers.
What they need is rarely a perfect testimony,
but an adultwilling to believe.
If you see yourself in these words, call 113. You will not be blamed for calling.
08 The Light
Reporting is not telling on someone, and it is not pushing a family into the abyss. It hands the situation to a professional system that can take over after you.
24 hours · free · every day of the year
Helpline
If you suspect a child is being abused — or you are that child. The line is answered by trained social workers. You can stay anonymous, and you can tell only the part you know.
None of these equals abuse on its own — but each is worth one more question.
You do not need evidence, and you do not need to judge who is right. That is the investigation’s job.
If you are a professional
Under Article 53 of the Child and Youth Welfare and Rights Protection Act, medical, social work, education, childcare, police and judicial personnel who learn that a child is being abused or otherwise harmed must report to the municipal or county authority within 24 hours.
This map will not make the harm disappear.
But it can mean that the next night,someone answers the phone.
09 The Method
Every figure comes from open statistics published by the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Department of Statistics, covering 2019–2025. The map, the year slider and the charts focus on 2020–2025, with 2025 as the main lens. We changed no values — only how they are shown.
| County | Reports | Victims | Deaths | vs 2020 |
|---|
Sorted from top to bottom by 2025 reports. All values come from official statistics, unadjusted.
Ministry of Health and Welfare, Department of Statistics — Child and Youth Protection: reported cases and triage, abuse and problem types, victims by age, perpetrator relationship, and deaths caused by parents or caregivers.
dep.mohw.gov.tw
County boundaries: g0v / twgeojson (Open Government Data License).
Fonts: Noto Serif TC, Noto Sans TC (SIL Open Font License 1.1).
Statistical data is released under the Open Government Data License, version 1.0. This site is an independent data-visualisation and public-advocacy work, not an official website of the Ministry of Health and Welfare; interpretation and design are the editorial team’s.