The Taiwan Bar Association yesterday said it is teaming up with women’s groups to provide free legal counsel to #MeToo accusers, citing concerns that defamation laws are being used to silence victims of sexual abuse.
Accusers face tremendous pressure and social stigma that they are only seeking attention, National Alliance of Taiwanese Women’s Associations chairwoman Peng Yen-wen (彭渰雯) told a news conference at the Taiwan Women’s Center in Taipei.
Victims who go public with their accusations are often tried by the court of public opinion as well as the court of law, as abusers frequently use the considerable financial expenses associated with protracted litigation to intimidate their accusers, she said.
Photo: CNA
The project is a collaboration between women’s rights groups and lawyers to shield sexual abuse victims from frivolous or vindictive lawsuits, she said.
The project’s legal team consisting of more than 40 attorneys can be reached by calling (02) 8911-5595, and businesses can request a consultation on handling workplace sexual harassment by calling (02) 2388-3619, its spokesperson said.
The Garden of Eden Foundation saw a fivefold increase in sexual harassment complaints after it set up a hotline early last month, executive director Wang Yue-hao (王玥好) said.
Callers consistently expressed fears that they would not be believed and often asked for nothing more than a sympathetic ear, she said, adding that the legal advocacy project is intended as a remedy to systematic and institutional biases against victims.
Citing a survey conducted by the Ministry of Labor last year, Awakening Foundation secretary-general Chyn Yu-rung (覃玉蓉) said that 78.79 percent of working women reported being harassed at work without ever filing a complaint.
This figure suggests there is a lack of trust by women in their complaints being fairly investigated by the justice system and corporate workplace, she said.
The Awakening Foundation received numerous calls from corporations asking about possible steps they can take to protect employees from harassment following the rise of the #MeToo movement in Taiwan, she said.
The government should furnish the personnel and guidelines that businesses need to realize workplace gender equality, Wang said, adding that prevention and enforcement are equally important in curbing inappropriate behavior.
Neil Pan (潘天慶), a member of the legal team, said that #MeToo accusers are typically in an unequal power relationship with their alleged abusers, meaning that legal protections against reputational damage need to be recalibrated in cases revolving around abuse.
The courts should exercise caution in dealing with defamation cases around allegations of sexual abuse to avoid the weaponization of the law by abusers, he said, adding that awarding exorbitant damages would have a chilling effect on victims.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS