An alliance pushing for amendments to the Domestic Violence Prevention Law (
The alliance -- representing several women's and legal groups, including the Mother Women Foundation, Women's Rescue Foundation and Judicial Reform Foundation -- released the list of major stories in an effort to raise awareness.
The alliance's proposed amendments, reached with the help of legislators from across party lines, is being reviewed in the legislature.
The 10 news reports are:
- A mother burned her daughter with cigarettes and tore her toenails off.
- A husband raped his wife after his wife refused to have sex, and the wife was hurt severely with the doctor testifying that normal sex could not have done harm like that.
- White-collar husbands beat up and hurt their wives, breaking the traditional impression that only blue-collar people would commit domestic violence.
- Parents in Kaohsiung forced their 12-year-old daughter to have three-way sex with them.
- A wife applied for divorce after being abused by her husband for more than 20 years with death threats.
- A Vietnamese woman was in critical condition after long-term abuse by her husband's family. After she married and came to Taiwan, she found her husband was still living with his ex wife and was forced to have threesomes.
- A 63-year-old woman who had been married for 40 years divorced her husband after being abused for more than 30 years.
- A gay man was beaten up by his live-in partner.
- The Ministry of the Interior added warrantless arrest to the Cabinet's amendments for the Domestic Violence Prevention Law. The alliance is also calling for warrantless arrest, which would allow the police to make arrests without a warrant in cases of domestic violence.
- A father beat his sons to death after his wife got a protection order and moved out.
Chain of abuse
The deputy executive director of the Mother Women Foundation, Yao Shu-wen (姚淑文), said that children in a family in which the husband abuses his wife often become victims too.
"Even being forced to witness violence is a form of abuse," Yao said.
"About 70 percent to 80 percent of abused women usually suffer sexual abuse as well as physical abuse. We strongly urge the public to remember that everyone's got the right to say no to sex, even to his or her spouse. Marriage does not make sex between couples obligatory."
The deputy director of the Warm Life Association for Women (晚晴協會), Hsu Wen-ching (許文青), said she had seen more white-collar husbands abusing their wives.
She said she met a white-collar husband who told her, "If my wife makes mistakes, then she deserves to be beaten. With a beating she will change, and when she changes, things will be right again."
Meanwhile, People First Party Legislator Chin Hui-chu (
Protection
"We are extending protection of domestic violence victims to couples who are living together but not married, as well as gay couples," Chin said. "Further, we would allow the police to make arrests without warrants in a domestic violence case when necessary."
Judge Gau Fehng-shian (高鳳仙) of the Taiwan High Court said the alliance's proposal had another major difference from the Cabinet's version: the alliance insists that domestic violence cases, with some exceptions, be sorted out in court, while the Cabinet wants cases to be sorted out by couples themselves.
The Domestic Violence Prevention Law was first passed in 1998, and the alliance has offered its version of amendment in May this year.
The alliance's version has passed first reading in the legislature and will be reviewed by related committees today. The Cabinet's version reached the legislature just two days ago and has not yet been put forward for committee review.
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