Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) yesterday said the government has a “zero tolerance” policy for sexual exploitation, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) said it would never again work with entertainer Mickey Huang (黃子佼) after he was accused of sexual harassment.
Huang was investigated by prosecutors in June last year on suspicion of sexual harassment and taking nude photographs of a minor, but the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Wednesday said he would not be prosecuted due to a lack of evidence.
During the investigation, Huang was found to be in possession of seven sex videos featuring a minor, purchased from an illegal online sex video platform, but he was granted deferred prosecution for two years, and ordered to pay a fine of NT$1.2 million (US$37,389) and write a letter of repentance.
Photo: Taipei Times file
The prosecutors’ decision sparked a public outcry, including from model-turned-actress Sonia Sui (隋棠), who on Friday announced that she would no longer work with Huang, because he had purchased videos from an illegal platform that hosts many illegal and non-consensual sex videos, including of children.
The MOHW’s Department of Protective Services late on Saturday night issued a statement saying that as the prosecutors’ investigation had confirmed Huang’s breach of the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒童及少年性剝削防制條例), it had zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and would never work with Huang again.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Li-feng (李麗芬) on Sunday said the ministry has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation, and that in addition to never working with Huang again, it would also remove all previous policy promotion videos with him in them.
Chen yesterday said the government has a “zero tolerance” policy against harassment and sexual exploitation, and “absolute zero tolerance” for sexual exploitation.
He said the Gender Equity Education Act (性別平等教育法), the Gender Equality in Employment Act (性別平等工作法) and the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法) were amended last year, and the reporting mechanism was strengthened, while relevant law enforcement amendments were made across ministries, which took effect this year.
According to the law, if online platforms do not remove non-consensual sex images after being notified, they can face a fine of between NT$60,000 and NT$600,000, or the Web site may be blocked if it is in another country.
Schools would also enhance gender equality education and empower young students to say no to sexual coercion, he added.
Separately, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Shih-cheng (王世堅) yesterday said Huang’s behavior was “heinous and outrageous,” and that he would propose an amendment to the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act, so that people like Huang who purchase porn featuring a minor would face three to five years in prison.
If offenders are charged with imprisonment of three years or more, they would not be granted deferred prosecution, he said, adding that sexual harassment should be an indictable offence, instead of the current state in which there is no trial without complaint.
Additional reporting by Hsieh Chun-lin and CNA
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS