As a series of events was launched yesterday to celebrate the upcoming Women's Day on March 8, Taipei City officials admitted that one of their most urgent tasks was to set up a special committee to deal with the sensitive issue of sexual harassment within the municipal government.
Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
The city officials say that these events would help enhance gender equality in Taiwan's capital city.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Also launched yesterday was a new Web site dedicated to women's issues set up by the city's social affairs bureau.
The Web site is located at http://www.taipeiwomen.tcg.gov.tw. City government officials were joined by representatives from women's rights groups.
At the launch, Ma reviewed information on women's rights presented on billboards at the lobby of the city hall. On the billboards were briefings on how much has been done to improve women's rights in respect of their status in the family, their health, safety, education, participation in public affairs and their rights in the workplace.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Ma listed what he said were his government's achievements in enhancing women's rights since taking over the city government in December 1998.
He cited the introduction of a 24-hour taxi service telephone line (080055850) and the establishment of a municipal center to deal with domestic violence and sexual assault.
The mayor admitted, however, that discrimination against women within the municipal mechanism was also a key target for his administration.
As an example of discrimination within the city government he cited regulations giving women on maternity leave a "second grade" ranking in the merit system, saying it was an "obviously unfair" practice that discriminated against women.
"I've requested city officials to drop this practice as this is obviously unfair to women," he said.
Ku Yen-lin (
"The problem has been greatly reduced since Ma took office," Ku said.
Other urgent tasks included setting up a special committee to deal with sexual harassment problems inside the municipal government, Ma said.
"The problem of sexual harassment in the workplace is sometimes beyond our imagination ... So the city government has decided to form a committee to accept complaints from victims to deal with this problem," he said.
Ku said that although Ma's predecessor, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), had enacted rules to deal with sexual harassment problems inside the city government, the lack of a special unit to deal with the issue made the rules largely ineffective.
"It's important to set up a committee to work as an executive body [to implement] these rules," Ku said, adding that the committee is likely to be established some time in April.
Speaking about courses on gender equality and the prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace that have been initiated within the city government, Ku admitted that it's difficult to instill the notion of "gender quality" into the minds of many high-ranking male civil servants.
"Many simply didn't consider sexual harassment or gender equality an issue. Whenever the course touched upon issues such as reasonable women's rights, these men would say they wanted to have reasonable rights as well," she said.
Admitting it's difficult to input the concept of gender quality into the minds of civil servants, Ku said such on-the-job training is also important to re-educate city officials.
"It's important to teach civil servants to become gender sensitive -- to respect the opposite sex by learning to put themselves in the shoes of the opposite sex," she said. More information on related events can be found at http://www.taipeiwomen.tcg.gov.tw.
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