Women’s rights and welfare under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has significant room for improvement, opposition lawmakers said on International Women’s Day yesterday.
“The misery index of Taiwanese women has skyrocketed in the past few years as the current administration has not brought hope on almost every issue they care about,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安) said.
Citing statistics compiled by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), Pan said Taiwanese women have to work 65 days more than men on average every year, but their average salary was 17.6 percent lower.
Photo: CNA
Women’s labor force participation rate last year was 49 percent, compared with men’s 72 percent, he said, adding that between 2,000 and 3,000 women become unemployed after marriage or have children every year.
For those who are employed, they experience harassment from men, with 375 of the 386 reported cases of sexual harassment being filed by women, Pan said, adding that it did not include those who did not file harassment suits.
Ma has failed to improve women’s well-being as president as well as keeping his campaign pledge of allocating at least a quarter of Cabinet positions to females, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Lin Shih-chia (林世嘉) said she would propose a bill to protect women’s right to participate in politics by increasing the number of female conveners in the Legislative Yuan’s subcommittees.
Her proposal is to increase the number of subcommittee conveners from two to three and any sex should not be less than one-third of the total number of conveners, which means that at least one female lawmaker would be a convener in every subcommittee.
Ma, meanwhile, touted the nation’s achievements in pushing for gender equality in various fields and promised to continue the work to promote women’s rights.
The president, speaking at an International Women’s Day event organized by the Ministry of the Interior, detailed the government’s continuous efforts in promoting women’s rights, including increasing the number of legislative seats for women and creating job opportunities for them, adding the government would work harder to reduce domestic violence and sexual harassment.
Statistics from the ministry showed that the female labor force participation rate reached 50 percent — contrary to the DGBAS’ figure that Peng cited — while the number of female legislators accounted for more than one-third of all seats.
Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) added the government would work to raise the number of female members in committees at government agencies and state-run corporations to account for at least one-third of all members.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
RSS