Taiwan still has a long way to go to realize gender equality, and the nation needs to work on gender mainstreaming in the judiciary, improve workplace equality and ensure social justice is realized through the judicial system, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday.
“A recent case at the Court of the Judiciary has sparked widespread discussion in the nation. As the president, I should not and will not comment on the case, but the controversies surrounding it made me very aware that Taiwan still has a long way to go in realizing gender equality,” Tsai said on Facebook yesterday afternoon.
Tsai identified three areas of improvement for the nation.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
First, society should be more sympathetic to working women, she said.
“As a woman, I understand that gender-based pressure could happen at home, schools and workplaces in any sector. In workplaces, due to gender and power imbalance, the disadvantaged parties rarely receive sufficient support and are often subject to victim shaming,” she said. “People must be more sympathetic toward victims of gender inequality and try to understand them better.”
Second, judicial rulings must reflect principles of social justice, she said.
“The judicial system exists to uphold social justice. When a small number of judges hand out rulings that disappoint the public, people lose their trust in the judiciary,” she said, adding that her government would continue to work to reform the judiciary to restore the public’s trust in the system.
Third, the judiciary must work on gender mainstreaming, she said.
The Judicial Yuan has been planning on reforming the Court of the Judiciary and will improve gender equality education for judges and judicial officials, she added.
Although Tsai did not name names, she appeared to be referring to the second and final ruling handed down on Thursday last week on a sexual harassment case involving former Taipei High Administrative Court judge Chen Hung-pin (陳鴻斌).
The Court of the Judiciary, which handles disciplinary cases involving judges, ruled in October 2016 that Chen had sexually harassed his assistant and should be dismissed. It was the first time a Taiwanese court ordered a judge’s dismissal due to sexual harassment.
He appealed the verdict, and the court, in its second ruling delivered on International Women’s Day, decided that Chen only needed to pay a fine equal to one year’s salary on the grounds that he had shown remorse and that the court had found only three incidents of harassment.
Additional reporting by Ann Maxon
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai