Last week, women’s rights around the world received a boost when the Nobel Peace Prize was given to three women from Africa and the Middle East in acknowledgement of their work in promoting democracy, peace and gender equality. Even before the award, much attention has gone into improving gender equality in Taiwan and this year was particularly significant, the Taiwan Review reported.
In March, President Ma Ying-jeou opened Taiwan’s first national Women’s Policy Conference in Taipei and told the audience that Taiwan is 20th in the world on the Gender-related Development Index and ranked 4th in terms of gender equity according to the formula used by the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP). The conference organized by the Foundation for Women’s Rights Promotion and Development (FWRPD) brought together 160 government-run women’s centers in Taiwan.
Groups such as FWRPD have been instrumental in getting Taiwan to participate in the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (DEDAW), which 187 countries have already ratified. The CEDAW Implementation Act will take effect next January 1 and require agencies and laws to be in compliance with the act by the end of 2014.
According to the Taiwan Review, Sabrine R.S. Sun, an assistant researcher at the Center for Creativity and Innovation Studies at National Chengchi University in Taipei, said by advancing gender equity Taiwan can raise its status in the global community. “Taiwan exists in such a unique way–it suffers many constraints but also boasts a lot of freedom…We need to maximize our unique values, and one of those is our liberal view of gender rights. By promoting such values, we’ll be able to attract the notice of the international community.”
Taiwan was further recognized when its former Vice President Lu Hsiu-lien was honored in June at the congress of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW) in Helsinki, Finland. Lu not only gave the keynote speech at the meeting, but also received BPW’s Professional Leader Award. Before her election to office, she kick-started the “new feminism” movement in Taiwan in the 1970s and started a BPW chapter in Taiwan in 1973.
Over the past two decades, Taiwan has made great strides in improving gender equality by passing such laws as the Sexual Assault Crime Prevention Act (1997), the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (1998), the Gender Equality in Employment Act (2002), and by strengthening its Civil Code to provide further protection for married women. This year, the Legislative Yuan revised the Gender Equity Education Act, initially passed in 2004, by giving it more teeth.
In awarding this year’s Nobel Peace prize to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president, and her follow peace activist Leymah Gbowee; and Tawakul Karman of Yemen, a pro-democracy campaigner, a renewed focus will be placed on women’s rights. In Taiwan, although significant progress has been made in terms of gender equality, the promotion of equality between the sexes in all spheres is still very much on the agenda.