Dozens of members of Taipei’s New Female Immigrant Care Association yesterday staged a protest outside city hall to demand an apology from Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) over his recent off-the-cuff remark describing the foreign spouses of Taiwanese men as “imported foreign brides.”
“I came from China and have been married with a Taiwanese man for 14 years. There are more than 480,000 immigrants in Taiwan. We are human beings, not some products for sale,” association executive secretary Li Xia (李霞) said as she led the protest, which consisted of women like her from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand.
Li was referring to remarks Ko made during a gender forum on Saturday, when he commented that he was bewildered by the fact that there were more single men than women in the nation, given that “the nation has imported 300,000 foreign brides.”
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Ko declined to further elaborate on his comments when asked by reporters on the sidelines of the event whether the use of the term “import” was appropriate when describing foreign spouses.
“Today is International Women’s Day, but it is the hardest day for immigrant females in Taiwan. Ko’s remarks were discriminatory against women like us, and those words kept me up all night last night,” Li said yesterday.
“We demand that Ko issue an apology to new immigrant women and urge other women’s rights groups and the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Women’s Development Committee to join in condemnation of the mayor,” she said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City councilors Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) and Angela Ying (應曉薇) also attended the protest.
Ying urged Ko to acknowledge his mistake, while Lee said that immigrants are also a part of the city, and that the mayor should treat these people with equality rather than discrimination.
Later yesterday, Ko said he did not mean any harm when speaking at the forum and admitted that there was plenty of room for improvement in the language he used.
Asked if he wanted to apologize for his comments, Ko said he said that he had said many things at the forum, but only two words were taken out of context and then put under the magnifying glass.
“I am confused and troubled by this kind of social phenomena,” Ko said.
“If we believe someone does not harbor malice toward a subject, then there is no need to blow it out of proportion,” Ko said, but added that he would correct any mistakes that he made.
Later yesterday, when told that his mother, Ho Jui-ying (何瑞英), also believed that he should apologize for it, Ko said: “I will apologize then.”
Asked to comment in a separate setting, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that “import” was not the best choice of word to be used in the situation.
“[Ko] should be especially cautious choosing his words,” Tsai said. “However, I think he would be more considerate after we remind him repeatedly.”
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS