The majority of mayoral candidates for the six special municipalities have no clear plans for improving child and long-term care policies other than offering subsidies, while no platforms call for an increase in minority participation in policymaking, a coalition of civil groups said yesterday.
Representatives from the Awakening Foundation, the Childcare Policy Alliance, the Alliance of Educare Trade Unions, the Taiwan Association of Family Caregivers (TAFC), the Gender Equity Education Coalition and the Panicle Women’s Coalition at a news conference in Taipei reviewed candidate and party platforms regarding gender equality and urged voters to support candidates committed to promoting gender equality in the nine-in-one elections on Saturday next week.
The government has long taken a laissez faire approach to child and long-term care, causing many professional caregivers to be overworked and underpaid, and leaving family caregivers struggling to meet unrealistic expectations, Awakening Foundation vice chairwoman Chiang Chen-yin (姜貞吟) said.
“As city governments of the six special municipalities have more resources, if they cannot effectively build public child and long-term care services, how would other areas, especially remote ones, be able to?” Chiang asked.
Public childcare services are scarce, especially for children younger than two, with only 7 percent accepted to public centers, Childcare Policy Alliance spokesman Wang Chao-ching (王兆慶) said.
The government should provide public childcare services that are “affordable, high-quality and widely available, so that families can easily find one near their home and have money left over,” he said.
Improving childcare would not only ensure its quality and reduce families’ financial strain, but would also allow more women to develop their careers and boost the birthrate, he added.
TAFC secretary-general Jenny Chen (陳景寧) said that several mayoral candidates have proposed repurposing unused public spaces for long-term care services, but urged them to also enhance existing support networks for family caregivers, such as promoting workplace programs that offer assistance to employees who need such services.
Meanwhile, Panicle Women’s Coalition convener Wang Chieh-yen (王介言) expressed disappointment at the lack of platforms that plan to increase participation by women and sexual minorities in policymaking.
“Of the mayoral candidates, almost no one expressed concern or offered support for the issue,” Wang said. “I doubt some of them even know about existing mechanisms to promote minority participation.”
She urged candidates to increase communication channels between the government and civil groups, and to increase minority quotas for decisionmaking governmental bodies.
The Awakening Foundation in August called on political parties to increase public childcare services, enhance long-term care services, promote public participation in gender-related policies and raise the percentage of women in local governments, Chiang said.
While the New Power Party, Social Democratic Party, Green Party and People First Party pledged support, the Democratic Progressive Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) responded with “disappointing” answers, she said.
The groups said they would continue to observe candidates after the election.
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