The Executive Yuan yesterday approved amendments to make it easier for Taiwanese to be legally recognized as a person of indigenous descent and open more public sector jobs for affirmative action targeting indigenous Taiwanese.
The Status Act for Indigenous Peoples (原住民身分法) stipulates that children from marriages with one indigenous parent can obtain indigenous status after taking an indigenous-language name, the Council of Indigenous Peoples said.
The children of a mixed marriage can claim indigenous status after including the indigenous parent’s traditional name in their own, meaning they can keep a Mandarin Chinese name, the council’s proposed changes said.
Photo courtesy of the Executive Yuan
The changes would stipulate that a person of indigenous descent raised in a non-indigenous adoptive family can obtain indigenous status by the same method without being constrained by regulations concerning surname changes in the Civil Code, the council said.
In addition, Taiwanese who voluntarily relinquish their indigenous status can regain it once in a lifetime, it said.
Under the Indigenous Peoples Employment Rights Protection Act (原住民族工作權保障法), government offices have a quota for indigenous employees to meet or they must pay an exemption fee, it said, adding that this only applied for menial jobs.
The amendments to the law would mandate government offices to fill indigenous quotas across all categories of work, the council said.
However, government offices that have a valid reason for not meeting the quota would not have to pay an exemption fee, it said, adding that what constitutes a valid reason would be determined by an appropriate regulatory authority.
The proposed changes mandate that central government offices headquartered in an indigenous region must meet a 3 percent quota of indigenous employees, which is the proportion of indigenous people in the nation’s population, the council said.
The amendments showed that central government offices and agencies, public schools and state-owned enterprises headquartered in indigenous areas must meet a 3 percent indigenous quota in hiring, it said.
That figure was determined by the proportion of indigenous people in the nation’s population, it added.
For local government offices in an indigenous region, their quota is to be decided by the proportion of the indigenous population residing in their jurisdiction, it said.
The exemption fee to be paid by government contractors would be calculated according to a reduced rate, as the current formulae were taken down by the nation’s constitutional judges, it said.
The changes to the indigenous identity rules are made to create an objective and consistent standard for laying claims to indigenous status, said Yapasuyongu Poiconu, director of the council’s Comprehensive Planning Department.
The council hopes the amendment would protect the right to identity while emphasizing people recognized as members of an indigenous group have a responsibility to the continuance of its traditional language and culture, he said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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 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
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
RSS