The military reported 41 confirmed sexual harassment incidents last year, a 52 percent increase over 27 cases reported the previous year, the Ministry of National Defense said in a report to the Legislative Yuan.
Reported cases of sexual harassment have been on the rise nearly every year after 2016, the ministry said in a report dated April 30.
From 2016 to last year, the military handled 245 sexual harassment allegations, including 157 that were later proven, and 58 that went to trial but did not result in a conviction, the report said.
Twenty-six cases were later dropped, and four remain in the legal process, it said.
Allegations and convictions rose almost annually from 38 allegations and 24 proven cases in 2016 to 65 allegations and 41 proven cases last year, it said.
It indicated in the report that biographical information is available for analysis in 172 cases.
Male on female harassment, which accounted for 160 cases, was by far the most prevalent in the military, followed by 11 cases of male on male harassment and one case of female on female harassment.
The perpetrator was the victim’s superior in 103 cases and of lower rank in four cases, while 99 of the incidents involved a perpetrator in a leadership position, 63 involved colleagues and 21 involved a person pursuing a relationship with another, the report showed.
The victim was a military service member of non-commissioned rank in 75 cases, enlisted rank in 51 cases, a lieutenant or captain in 12 and major or colonel in three.
Out of 241 incidents, 184 involved inappropriate touching; 33 involved sending or sharing images without consent or sending unwanted texts; 20 involved humiliating, derogatory or hostile language; and four involved recording a person without their consent.
Military sexual harassment is most likely to occur in the office, which accounted for 142 cases, while 25 incidents occurred during a victim’s commute, 17 occurred through text messages and 10 in restaurants or hotels.
About 25,000, or 13.75 percent, of military service members are women, the report said, adding that the number of women in the military is increasing every year.
The ministry used different pools of cases in its tabulations, and in some cases did not provide an explanation.
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
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
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 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