Taiwan last year reported 3,656 sexual harassment complaints, up 45 percent from 2023, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday as officials recommendations to protect women in public spaces.
Ministry officials said that 92 percent of alleged victims were women and 60 percent were 30 years of age or younger, with 57 percent of reported incidents taking place in public.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Lu Chien-te (呂建德) said that 2,396 of the reports resulted in a formal investigation and that the most prominent type of harassment was groping, at 37 percent.
Photo: Lo Pi, Taipei Times
The latter figure represented a drop from 44 percent for that type of harassment reported in the 2023 study, while verbal harassment went up to 22 percent from the previous 14 percent, he said.
The changes in the data suggest that Taiwanese are becoming aware of what constitutes disrespectful sexual language as a form of harassment and are willing to report such incidents to the authorities, Lu said.
The 2023 amendments to the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法) simplified the process for filing a complaint and made managers of public venues responsible for implementing measures to prevent the offense, he said.
Department of Protective Services Director Kuo Tsai-jung (郭彩榕) said the prevalence of reported sexual harassment in public spaces showed that people in charge of these spaces need to do better.
The ministry has published various guidelines to provide guidance to metro transit service providers and private companies to enact prevention strategies, respond to sexual harassment complaints, and cooperate with law enforcement, officials said.
In 2024, the ministry subsidized local governments to employ 65 sexual harassment prevention specialists, who raised the incident clearance rate to 96.26 percent within four months of the original complaint’s filing across the nation, they said.
Taiwanese judicial authorities imposed penalties in 1,527 sexual harassment cases, doubling the conviction rate when compared with 2023, officials said.
Wang Li-qian (王儷倩), senior manager at the legal department of Uniqlo Taiwan, who was invited to speak at the event, said her company’s anti-harassment policies revolve around prevention and post-incident operating procedures.
Corporate policy should include mandatory sexual harassment prevention training and regular tests, as well as specialized training for managers and investigators, she said.
Employees should be taught the C.A.R.E. model, which stands for confronting the situation, alerting others, redirecting attention, and engaging the authorities afterward, Wang said.
In addition, clerks and managers must know when to call police and the importance of preserving evidence should the authorities later decide to launch an investigation, she said.
Patrolling the premises of a large venue at regular and randomized intervals and ensuring all spaces are well-lit and have good camera courage are important to safety, said Tsao Chun-wen (曹俊文), deputy head of station operations at Taipei Rapid Transit Corp.
High-resolution surveillance cameras, intercoms, emergency buttons in restrooms, and artificial intelligence customer service agents capable of responding to anonymous texts and alerting human supervisors are useful technological safety devices, he said.
Elsewhere, the Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union yesterday called on the government to protect flight attendants from sexual harassment in Taiwan-owned aircraft flying in foreign countries.
In 2022, a Dutch pilot harassed a Taiwanese flight attendant, but local courts declined to impose penalties, stating that it had no jurisdiction over acts happening on a Taiwanese aircraft, the union said.
When asked about it, Kuo acknowledged that transnational incidents could complicate law enforcement efforts, as the Administrative Penalty Act (行政罰法) seemingly limits its applicability to Taiwanese soil.
However, this interpretation of the law is likely incorrect, as airplanes and ships operated by Taiwanese entities are part of the nation’s sovereign territory and therefore subject to its laws, she said.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare has initiated discussions with the Ministry of Labor to consolidate a common understanding of the law to protect the rights of airline employees, she said.
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