Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday presented his women's policy on International Women's Day, promising to ensure women's safety and create 100,000 more full-time jobs for them if elected on March 22.
Ma vowed to tackle the top three threats against women in Taiwan: domestic violence, sexual assault and sexual harassment. He also pledged to ease pressure on women and to fight for their safety, equality and development if elected.
Ma said he would increase prison terms by as much as 50 percent for sex offenders and would implement stricter standards on granting parole.
PHOTO: CNA
On reducing the amount of pressure placed on women, Ma said he would implement all the provisions in the Gender Equality Employment Law (兩性工作平等法) and seek to eliminate discrimination against women in the job market.
"We will establish a mature nursing system and create a carefree environment for women. Society will help to take care of their children and elderly family members when they are at work," Ma said while attending an International Women's Day celebration event at Youth Park in Taipei County.
Ma also promised to provide employment subsidies for women to encourage them to join the job market, which could create more than 100,000 jobs over the next four years.
"What we provide will be full-time high-quality jobs. We are not talking about part-time jobs or temporary work," he said.
When asked whether or not he would celebrate Women's Day with his wife Chow Mei-ching (
Chow, however, will begin visiting voters and campaigning for him starting on Thursday, Ma said.
Chow, who has rarely made public appearances during her husband's previous election campaigns, usually avoids publicity and has only campaigned for Ma on the eve of the two elections when he ran for Taipei mayor.
Ma said Chow would not join his campaign tour and would solicit support at separate events.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS