Framed by patriarchal thinking, an amendment to the Civil Law (民法) allowing individuals to change their surnames represents "one step forward and three steps back" on the issue of empowering people to identify themselves as they see fit, a women's rights group said yesterday.
Passed by the legislature last week, an amendment to article 1059 of the Civil Law allows individuals to legally switch their fathers' surnames for their mothers', provided that both parents agree to the switch, representatives of the Awakening Foundation said at a press conference yesterday.
The foundation is a non-profit organization based in Taipei that is dedicated to protecting women's rights.
"We're happy that the amendment finally passed after six years of lobbying," said foundation board member and lawyer Yu Mei-nu (尤美女), "but it's riddled with problems arising from a traditional mindset."
The first problem, foundation director Huang Chang-ling (
All it takes to torpedo the whole process is the father's refusal, Huang said.
"The direction that this bill is going in is promising, but there aren't any provisions to address what to do if the parents can't agree," Yu said.
"At that point, old patriarchal tendencies take over, leaving people little choice but to retain their fathers' surnames," Yu said.
The second roadblock in the bill is the requirement that an individual seeking a surname change must get his or her parents' permission even after becoming an adult, a foundation press release said.
A person seeking to change his or her name is also only allowed to switch from the father's surname to that of the mother's, or vice versa, and can't adopt a third surname.
In other words, the law treats those who want to change their names as minors regardless of their age, reflecting a backward cultural mindset, foundation members said.
"What's in a surname? The traditional thinking is associated with preserving one's lineage, a Chinese cultural mainstay. But sometimes that paradigm clashes with an individual's human rights," Yu said.
"This bill takes one step forward before taking three steps back," she said.
Those who typically want to change their surnames are children of single mothers or individuals who have suffered extreme abuse by their fathers, foundation members added.
Speaking to the Taipei Times yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Yun-sheng (林耘生), who serves on the legislative Judiciary Committee that passed the amendment, said that, no matter what, the amendment marks a step forward on the issue of surname changes.
"Compared with what the law was before, this is an improvement, satisfying the conditions of most people who need to rely on it [to change their names]," Lin said.
Surname changes, he added, create many "headaches" in the operations of household registration offices nationwide, and thus related laws and regulations can only be liberalized up to a point.
Legally changing one's surname was virtually impossible before last week's amendment.
"But we're willing to listen to the criticisms of the Awakening Foundation and work with them to make the law better," Lin added.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
RSS