Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday released his women's policy, promising to create jobs for 1 million women in eight years if elected.
Dubbed the "five guarantees," Hsieh promised to establish a gender equality committee under the Executive Yuan, increase government budget earmarked for related purposes and fully protect women's rights.
He also said he would create jobs for 1 million women in eight years.
Statistics show that about 4.1 million women were employed in 2005, an increase of 84,000 from the previous year. The number jumped to 4.3 million in 2006 and 4.4 million last year.
If 120,000 more women can get a job each year, a total of 960,000 women would enter the job market in eight years, he said.
Third, he said the government would provide NT$5 billion in low-interest, no-guarantor required loans to women who want to start their own business.
Fourth, the government would provide free computer learning courses to 100,000 women each year. Beginning last year, nonprofit-making groups can apply for government funding to provide computer training courses to women. The funding has benefited 10,000 women and is expected to benefit 20,000 more women this year.
Finally, the government would employ professional social workers to ensure individual safety of women and children.
The DPP candidate also signed on an agreement that offers "six promises" to the country's women.
He promised to hire more female officials in the government, ensure the safety of women, protect and respect female caretakers, prevent women from cultural discrimination, encourage the children of intermarriages to learn the language of their foreign parent and provide quality child-care facilities.
Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), who attended the event as a special guest, said Hsieh could also work on correcting the misperception that women "are weak."
COLLABORATION: As TSMC is building an advanced wafer fab in Dresden, Germany, it needs to build a comprehensive supply chain in Europe, Joseph Wu said Taiwan is planning to team up with the Czech Republic to build a semiconductor cluster in the European country, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Friday. Wu, who led a Taiwanese delegation at the annual GLOBSEC Forum held in Prague from Friday to today, said in a news conference that Taiwan seeks to foster cooperation between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and its counterparts in Czechia. Such cooperation is expected to transform the country into one of the most important semiconductor clusters in Europe over the next three to five years, he added. As TSMC is building an advanced
A joint declaration by Pacific leaders was reissued yesterday morning with mentions of Taiwan removed after China slammed an earlier version as a “mistake” that “must be corrected.” After five days of talks in Tonga, a “cleared” communique was released on Friday that reaffirmed a 30-year-old agreement allowing Taiwan to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF). However, the wording immediately raised the ire of Chinese diplomats, who piled pressure on Pacific leaders to amend the document. The forum reissued the communique without explanation yesterday morning, conspicuously deleting the paragraph concerning the bloc’s “relations with Taiwan.” “It must be a
A tropical depression in waters east of the Philippines could develop into a tropical storm as soon as today and bring rainfall as it approaches, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, while issuing heat warnings for 14 cities and counties. Weather model simulations show that there are still considerable differences in the path that the tropical depression is projected to take. It might pass through the Bashi Channel to the South China Sea or turn northeast and move toward the sea south of Japan, CWA forecaster Yeh Chih-chun (葉致均) said, adding that the uncertainty of its movement is still high,
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
RSS