The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday proposed six amendments to benefit women to mark International Women’s Day.
The KMT proposed a new monthly family support subsidy of NT$10,000 for up to two years; extending maternity leave from eight to 12 weeks; paying women an additional 20 percent of wages during maternity leave if it is their second or subsequent child; allowing mothers to file for paid leave to care for children under the age of six, up from three; full tuition subsidies for children aged three to five; and eventually legalizing surrogacy, KMT Legislator Lin Ssu-ming (林思銘) said.
The government should endeavor to ease the burden on young parents by offering better child welfare policies, he added.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The KMT hopes that its measures contribute to realizing the goal of building families that share equal rights, it said.
KMT Legislator Wan Mei-ling (萬美玲) said the current eight-week maternity leave has roots in the now-defunct factories act that was introduced in 1929, adding that the nation has not made any adjustments in nearly a century.
Taiwan’s maternity leave is inferior to those in other countries, with Japan having 14 weeks, Singapore having 16 weeks, Australia having 18 weeks and Vietnam having six months of paid maternity leave, Wan said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
At a separate news conference at the legislature yesterday, Taiwan Women’s Link president Huang Shu-ying (黃淑英) and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) urged the government and public to pay more attention to cardiovascular diseases among women.
Taiwan Women’s Link said that cardiovascular diseases are often considered more prevalent in men, when actually it is the leading cause of death for women.
Treatment of cardiovascular diseases should be done while taking note of this trend, as methods of care for men cannot be applied wholesale to women, it added.
Since 2016, the organization has set the second Friday of March every year as Go Red for Women Day, during which people are urged to wear red in support of its event to promote awareness of cardiovascular diseases among women.
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