The Ministry of the Interior released the country’s first Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) report yesterday, saying that efforts are still needed to promote gender equality in the labor market.
“The data we used for the report were collected from different government institutions over a period of almost a year. With the participation of experts from various fields, we analyzed the information we gathered through numerous meetings and in-depth research to complete the report,” Minister of the Interior Liao Liou-yi (廖了以) said at a press conference. “Many government institutions also put efforts in writing the report and it has helped them to get an idea of the current human rights conditions for women in the country and how to develop future policies.”
Taiwan’s first CEDAW report said that gender equality in the job market still needed improvement.
“Many women face illegal reduction in salary, transfer or dismissal because of childbirth or baby-nursing,” the report said. “It is also common to find unfair salary and promotion opportunities for women in the job market.”
Although gender equality laws have long been in place, discrimination is still very common because of deep-rooted traditional concepts, the report said, recommending the government put in more efforts to promote equality.
“We also call on government institutions with large gaps in the numbers of their male and female employees — such as the military, the coast guard and the police — to create an environment friendly [to women], improve the equality of promotion opportunities and reform their internal employee evaluation systems,” it said.
The convention — which now has 185 signatory countries — was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979. All signatory countries are required to submit reports on the status of gender equality and efforts to eliminate discrimination every four years.
Following a Legislative Yuan decision, then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) signed the convention in January last year. However, the UN declined to consider Taiwan a CEDAW member.
While Taiwan will not be able to submit its country report to the UN, Liao said that “evaluating conditions of women’s rights according to CEDAW standards is a helpful step toward improving women’s rights in Taiwan.”
In addition to the official country report, some women’s groups in Taiwan began writing their own report last year in the hopes the country can still interact with the international community through exchanges with non-governmental organizations.
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
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
RSS