Jiang Yijie used her position to take away the money from the account of an elderly person who was declared a guardian and was transferred to the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office.
Jiang Yijie, a 38-year-old social worker from the Taipei City Social Affairs Bureau, was suspected of taking advantage of her position to embezzle more than 12 million yuan from five warded elders who were unable to manage their own property, attracting attention from the outside world. The All-Federation of Social Workers Association issued a statement emphasizing that if verified by judicial verification, this move seriously violates the "Code of Social Work Ethics" and harms the rights and interests of service recipients and the public's trust in the social work profession.
The All-China Federation of Social Workers Association emphasizes that social work is a helping profession with the core of protecting the vulnerable and promoting social equity. Social workers should shoulder the highest standards of protection responsibilities and assist the elderly who have lost the ability to take care of themselves and have been declared guardians. The All-China Federation of Social Workers will condemn in the strongest possible terms any behavior that uses their power to infringe on the rights of clients and seek personal gain. It hopes that the judicial authorities will "do not indulge in vain" and thoroughly investigate the truth. They must be severely punished in accordance with the law and will never be sheltered.
However, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce also pointed out that this incident showed that there are systemic risks in the implementation of property management of "elderly persons under guardianship declaration" by the public sector and the social welfare system. When financial management rights are highly concentrated in a single staff member, it is easy to form a blind spot to prevent fraud.
The Federation strongly calls on the Ministry of Health and Welfare and all county and city social bureaus to immediately take stock of the current management process and establish anti-fraud mechanisms such as "financial and service diversion", "double review" and "regular third-party spot checks" to protect the property safety of service recipients and to protect frontline social workers from systemic risks.
In addition, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions emphasized that the serious illegal behavior of a very small number of individuals should not represent the quality and value of the overall social work profession. This incident has dealt a huge blow to the tens of thousands of grassroots social workers across Taiwan who stick to their posts and work hard day and night. There are many social workers across Taiwan every day accompanying vulnerable families and protecting high-risk groups. We hope that the public will remain rational and continue to give trust and support to the frontline social workers who are fulfilling their duties.
The Federation stated that the foundation of social work is built on trust. In the future, it will work with various county and city associations to implement professional self-discipline mechanisms, continue to promote in-depth education on "social work professional ethics" and "property legal concepts", and actively seek to participate in the revision of relevant government supervision mechanisms, striving to establish a more transparent and safe service system and regain society's recognition of the social work profession.
