The number of female victims of violent crime in Taiwan last year was more than double the number of male victims, a Ministry of the Interior official said yesterday.
Lin Tzu-ling (林慈玲), executive secretary of an interior ministry committee aimed at preventing domestic violence and sexual assault, cited National Police Administration (NPA) statistics during a seminar on the protection of women's rights.
The statistics showed that 103.6 out of every 100,000 women were victims of violent crime last year, while 41.8 out of every 100,000 men were.
The same statistics showed that the number of female victims of sexual assault or domestic violence was much higher than that of male victims.
There were 3,114 victims of sexual assault last year, with women accounting for 97.1 percent of the total. The NPA also handled 17,316 cases of domestic violence, with more than 90 percent of the victims being women.
Lin said that in order to guarantee the physical safety and mental health of women, a special task force under an Executive Yuan committee to promote women's rights has already presented a work plan. The plan focuses on the prevention of domestic violence, sexual assault, the sex trade and sexual harassment, as well as on the protection and support of women, aboriginal groups and disadvantaged groups.
The government has also already begun to pay attention to the problems faced by foreign and Chinese spouses, especially in the areas of education, employment and medical care, Lin said.
Meanwhile, a local women's rights activist said yesterday that the government should set up a gender equality ministry to promote gender equality in policy formulation, legislation and resources distribution.
Yu Mei-nu (尤美女), president of the National Union of Taiwan Women's Associations (NUTWA), made the appeal at a seminar on the promotion of women's rights.
Noting that "rule by both genders" was one of President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) campaign promises, Yu said the administration should take advantage of the current government restructuring drive to create a gender affairs ministry to aid the realization of this goal.
Yu pointed out that women's rights promotion as a global trend has expanded to the pursuit of gender mainstreaming, which means putting gender equality into mainstream policies.
According to Yu, the Council of Europe has defined this as the reorganization, improvement, development and evaluation of policy processes, so that a gender equality perspective can be incorporated in all policies at all levels and at all stages, by those normally involved in policy-making.
To reach the goal of gender equality, Yu said, more and more countries around the world have created a national-level agency to handle gender affairs.
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