A women’s group and lawmakers yesterday were enraged by a Taiwan High Court ruling the previous day that acquitted a man of sexual harassment for holding a female subordinate at the shoulder and waist.
The court failed to take into consideration the female victim’s feelings, Modern Women’s Foundation executive director Yao Shu-wen (姚淑文) said.
On Tuesday, the court ruled in favor of a man surnamed Chang (張) in the second trial of a sexual harassment case.
Chang, 36 and married, was accused by a subordinate surnamed Hu (胡) of twice placing his hand on her shoulders and then putting hands around her waist for 10 seconds during an employees’ gathering at a pub in February 2008.
Feeling violated, Hu later filed a complaint with her company and filed a lawsuit against Chang at the Hsinchu District Court.
The district court found Chang guilty of sexual harassment and sentenced him to 40 days’ detention on the grounds that his actions constituted “touching another’s hips, breasts or other private body parts before one can resist,” as stipulated in the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法).
The High Court, however, overturned the lower court’s ruling in the second trial, saying that as women often expose their shoulders or waist in summertime, shoulders and waists should not be considered private body parts like breasts, hips and genitalia. As the defendant did not touch those private parts, his actions did not constitute sexual harassment, the High Court said. Tuesday’s verdict was final.
Yao Shu-wen (姚淑文), executive director of the Modern Women’s Foundation, which promoted the enactment of the act four years ago, said the waist was a sensitive body part for women.
Women do not allow men to touch their waists unless they are in a relationship, she said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chao Li-yun (趙麗雲) accused the High Court judges of having an “outdated mindset,” adding that the justice system must be more flexible and evolve over time.
She said she was concerned the verdict might have a negative impact on the public’s definition of sexual harassment.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英), a member of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, said judges must take a defendant’s intent and a victim’s feelings into account when determining whether a move constitutes sexual harassment.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
RSS