Official statistics about sexual harassment might contain “dark figures of crime,” as women tend to not report abuse and sexual victimization involving family members, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) said yesterday.
Chen made the remarks on the first day of a two-day seminar hosted by the Modern Women’s Foundation in Taipei to mark its 30th anniversary.
Complaints about sexual harassment have increased over the years, with cases prompting judicial probes rising from 259 in 2014, to 307 in 2015 and 411 last year, a survey published by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in June showed.
There were 184 complaints in Taipei last year, the highest of all municipalities, with 91 cases being handed to judicial authorities, the survey showed.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) praised the foundation for its efforts to promote women rights and prevent sexual violence in the past three decades and helping bring about the Sexual Assault Crime Prevention Act (性侵害犯罪防治法), the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (家庭暴力防治法) and the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法).
As the acts were promulgated more than 10 years ago, officials have started to examine them and plan amendments, Department of Protective Services Deputy Director Lin Wei-yen (林維言) said.
KMT Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) said the foundation is lobbying legislation against stalking.
Modern Women’s Foundation chief executive Jack Van (范國勇) said only the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) addresses stalking, “but that treats stalking as a minor offense that incurs only light penalties and does not address severe cases.”
He said that the Ministry of the Interior should take swift action to finalize its proposals for the proposed legislation so that legislative review of the draft could begin soon.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods