A women’s rights organization yesterday criticized the government for failing to afford women equal treatment in its special budget for a four-year economic stimulus plan aimed at addressing the economic crisis.
In a report to mark International Women’s Day, the Awakening Foundation said the Executive Yuan’s NT$500 billion (US$14.38 billion) plan, which has a job-creation component, ignored unemployed women.
The lion’s share of the budget has been allocated for construction projects, while NT$36.7 billion will go toward maintaining employment stability and helping students in financial difficulty continue their education, the report said.
Citing Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics employment figures for 2007, the foundation said nearly 70 percent of workers in the industrial sector — mining, manufacturing, power/fuel/water supply, pollution treatment and construction — were male. The percentage of female workers in those industries was less than half the percentage of male employees, the foundation said.
The civic group said most of the people being forced to take unpaid leave were production-line workers, in particular female workers. It said this finding was based on the calls it has received from people seeking assistance.
Single mothers often choose to work part time or at places that offer flexible hours because they need time to look after their children, the foundation said.
However, low-skilled jobs are usually the first to be cut in an economic downturn, it said. As a result, single mothers are usually the first victims of a recession.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
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