Taiwan boasts the highest gender development index (GDI) among all Asian countries and also performs well in terms of its gender empowerment measure (GEM), Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said yesterday.
Because of this, Lu said, the Democratic Pacific Union -- a non-governmental organization which was formally inaugurated by Lu last August -- has decided to promote the establishment of a Pan-Pacific University Union and a Pacific Elite Women Union to ensure that women's voices in the region are heard.
Lu made her comments about the nation's GDI and GEM in a speech delivered at the annual meeting of the Zonta International ROC Club in Taipei yesterday.
politically active
Lu said the "better half" of the world's population of 6.5 billion has become much more active in terms of political participation over the past six months. So far, she said, 13 nations, including Germany, Chile, Liberia and South Korea, have had female presidents, chancellors or prime ministers.
Nine nations, including Taiwan, Switzerland and South Africa, have female vice presidents. Another nine, including France, Norway and Sweden, have female ministers of national defense, Lu said.
In terms of GEM, she said, Norway ranks first in the world, followed by Denmark, while Taiwan ranks high on the list in 19th position, well ahead of Japan's ranking of 44th.
With a high GDI, Lu said, the nation's career women have also been significant contributors to the nation's GDP. Lu said women contributed 74 percent of the amount generated by men last year. This contribution was the second highest in Asia, behind only that of women in Hong Kong, she added.
representation
There are eight female Cabinet members in Taiwan, and 47 female legislators. At the local government level, Lu said, women command one mayoral post, one county chief post, 25 township or rural township chief posts, more than 200 city or county council seats, and over 300 elected representative seats.
Lu once again reiterated her ambition that in the remaining two years of her term as vice president, she would see to it that some 100,000 "good housekeepers" would be trained and made available for at least 300,000 families in the country. This would be a win-win solution as the program would help families in need of maids or caregivers on the one hand, and help unemployed women or women from financially underprivileged families secure jobs, Lu said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater