The UN’s Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women has removed a tweet that said baseball umpire Liu Po-chun (劉柏君) was from “Taiwan, Province of China” after Liu and Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) protested the designation as incorrect.
Liu — the first female referee to be accredited by the Republic of China Baseball Association — was featured by UN Women on its official Twitter account on Thursday after she received the World Trophy at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Women and Sport Awards, which were cohosted by the IOC and UN Women, at a ceremony in New York on March 19.
While Liu received the award as a recipient from “Chinese Taipei” for “her staunch advocacy for female empowerment through sport,” she was listed as being from a province of China by UN Women on Twitter.
Screen grab from Twitter
“Meet Po Chun Liu, the 1st woman baseball umpire from Taiwan, Province of China, who won 2019 IOC #WomenAndSportAwards for her work to empower women & girls through sport!” UN Women tweeted.
Liu said on Facebook on Thursday that she was honored to receive the trophy, but “I am a Taiwanese.”
She called on people to join her in telling the world that “Taiwan is NOT a province of China” and paste the statement below the UN Women tweet.
Wu also took to Twitter to lament the incorrect identification, asking why UN Women would ruin Liu’s spectacular achievement by incorrectly saying she was from a province of China.
“She’s from #TAIWAN. Period,” Wu wrote.
UN Women has deleted the tweet, but did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to the IOC, Liu has refused to let gender discrimination stand in her way throughout her sporting journey.
“It has not been an easy road, but her determination saw her go from being a volunteer in Little League to becoming the first female baseball umpire in her native Chinese Taipei,” the IOC said in a press release on March 19.
It also said that as a social worker, Liu has worked to create opportunities for girls and women to get involved in sports, “in leadership roles or on the field of play by organizing baseball clinics, workshops and international games in her home country.”
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