Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) and Fan Yun (范雲) yesterday urged the Ministry of Labor to review gender equality laws to protect workers, following a sexual harassment scandal at a chocolate company.
At a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, the lawmakers called for amending the Gender Equality in Employment Act (性別工作平等法).
The amendment highlights a case in which former Fu Wan Chocolate president Hsu Feng-chia (許峰嘉) in 2015 was sentenced to six months in prison, which was commuted to a fine.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
The issue was brought to light again after an Internet user last month posted about the case on the Dcard forum, resulting in other people announcing they would boycott Fu Wan Chocolate.
Hung said yesterday that the existing act does not stipulate the process for investigating an employer as the perpetrator in a case, adding that the act leads to that employer also being the judge, jury and executioner, which discourages victims from filing complaints “through the system.”
The amendment would address the issue by allowing victims to appeal to local authorities when an employer or company manager is the harasser, Hung said.
If the charges are substantiated, the accused would face a fine of up to NT$1 million, Hung added.
The amendment is waiting to be reviewed by the Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, he said.
Fan said that Fu Wan Chocolate is the first instance of a company’s products being boycotted due to a sexual harassment case.
The public has different expectations for companies, Fan added.
The Fu Wan Chocolate incident, along with the 2018 Google employee walkouts due to the Internet company’s handling of sexual harassment cases, demonstrates that sexual harassment is an important issue, National Taipei University law professor Kuo Ling-hwei (郭玲惠) told reporters.
Later yesterday, the ministry responded by saying that the act has its current wording because it also applies to military personnel, civil servants and educators.
Panels of experts and local labor office officials would be convened to discuss what changes should be made, the ministry added.
This story has been amended since it was first published.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS