Taiwan’s representative office in New York has lodged a protest with the UN over a map published by one of its agencies that shows Taiwan as part of China.
The Women in Politics 2021 map, published by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN Women, shows the political participation rate of women in countries around the world, with Taiwan color-coded in red, the same as China, and the combined rate listed at 24.9 percent.
In a Facebook post on Thursday, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in New York wrote that the map flagrantly excluded Taiwan and disregarded its hard-won progress in the area of gender equality.
“We have a democratically elected female head of state Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), and 42% of our lawmakers are women,” TECO wrote.
“‘For Democracy. For Everyone’ shouldn’t be just a slogan,” it said, referring to the IPU’s motto.
The map is to be displayed at a virtual meeting held by the UN Commission of the Status of Women from Monday to March 26, and Taiwan will not be distinguished from China, as it had been in the past.
Although Taiwan is not a member of the UN, its rate of women’s participation in politics is higher than that of many other countries.
Since Tsai, the nation’s first female president, was re-elected in January last year, the ratio of women in the Legislative Yuan has climbed to a record 41.59 percent.
TECO New York Director James Lee (李光章) said that his office had filed a protest with the UN over the IPU-UN Women in Politics 2021 map and had also appealed to UN Women to separate Taiwan from China on the map.
“What Taiwan has achieved in gender equality is obvious,” Lee said on Wednesday.
It is well known globally that Taiwan has a democratically elected female president, and it is an undeniable fact that Taiwan is not part of China, he said.
“A chart demonstrating the global participation of women in politics will not be complete without Taiwan,” he said.
At a time when the UN is keenly advocating for democracy and women’s rights around the world, it should face up to the existence of Taiwan, Lee said.
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