Women's groups gathered yesterday to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the murder of feminist Peng Wan-ru (
Peng, chief of the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Women's Affairs Department, was raped and killed while in Kaohsiung for a party meeting. She was last seen getting into a taxi the night before the DPP convention; her body was found three days later outside an abandoned Kaohsiung County warehouse, with more than 30 stab wounds.
Her killer was never caught.
Peng's murder underscored the threat to women's safety in this country. At the time of her murder, the focus was on crime prevention and public safety, the groups said yesterday, while the gender issue was largely ignored.
However, in memory of Peng, many women's groups were formed and these groups worked together to pressure the government into establishing new laws and regulations to protect the rights of women, said Chen Man-li (陳曼麗), director of the National Union of Taiwan Women Association.
These organizations have also provided women with employment counseling and legal aid over the years, including services for foreign spouses, whose numbers have skyrocketed in the recent years, Chen said.
The groups used yesterday's gathering to review the government's efforts in the past nine years to protect women's rights.
Attorney Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) recalled that at a conference held after Peng's murder, the Executive Yuan established the Committee for the Promotion of Women's Rights in 1997, while the Ministry of Education set up the Committee for Gender Equality Education. In 1999, the Ministry of the Interior established the Committee Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse, she said.
Yu said that Peng's death highlighted the plight of women both for the general public and the government and also helped encourage inter-governmental cooperation to protect women's rights.
In recent years, several laws have also been passed to ensure women's rights, Yu said, such as the Domestic Violence Law (家暴法) in 1998 and the Sexual Assault Protection Law (性騷擾防治法), which was passed earlier this year.
In addition, more women have taken an active role in politics and are no longer mere observers anymore, said Huang Tsang-ling (黃長玲), chairwoman of the Awakening Foundation.
Huang said a major breakthrough was made in 1997, when the DPP passed a measure to reserve for "either sex" one-quarter of all seats of elected party committees and candidates for elected public offices.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) followed suit, stipulating that at least one-fourth of its committee members and candidate slots would be for women, Huang said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS