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[News]Executive Yuan’s Committee of Women’s Rights Promotion Passes “Gender Equality Policy Outline” As Blueprint for Future Gender Equality Policy

Bureau of Social Affairs, Taichung City Government-News-系統管理 — 2011-10-31

　The Committee of Women’s Rights Promotion, the Executive Yuan, convened its 36th meeting on Sep 7 during which Premier Wu Den-yih said he would like to draw from all committee members valuable opinions about the work related to women’s rights based on their expertise and practical experiences, and he praised the continuous progress Taiwan has made in promoting gender mainstreaming under the advocacy and assistance of the Committee of Women’s Rights and inter-ministerial efforts and cooperation. In order to continue enhancing women’s rights in Taiwan, the premier gave the following instructions:
　1)The Executive Yuan will set up the Department of Gender Equality next year to deal with the coordination and promotion of gender equality policy, and actively organize the planning on staff, budget and office space.
　2)The passage of “Enforcement Regulations for Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)” is not only an important milestone in the country’s promotion of gender equality, but also brings local gender human rights into line with international standards, giving domestic gender rights equal protection and eliminating gender discrimination. To thoroughly implement the act, the premier instructed the Ministry of the Interior to actively compile booklet, make CD and edit teaching materials to advocate CEDAW according to CEDAW regulations, and asked other government departments including the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education, the Central Personnel Administration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to actively help the public understand CEDAW and conduct trainings related to the review of laws and regulations in the future. The formulation, revision or repeal of relevant laws and regulations and the improvement of administrative measures have to be accomplished within three years so as to conform to CEDAW regulations; and the national report on eliminating discrimination against women in the country will be submitted once every four years according to CEDAW regulations.
　3)In order to map out the future direction of the country’s gender equality policy, the Committee of Women’s Rights Promotion invited scholars, experts and women’s groups in the private sector last year to draft the “Gender Equality Policy Outline.” The central government’s relevant ministries, city and county governments and civic groups sponsored a total of 38 seminars to listen to the suggestions made by government units at all levels and the grassroots about policies related to gender equality, allowing communication between the public and private sectors regarding the future direction of the country’s gender equality policy. The “Gender Equality Policy Outline (draft)” was presented for discussion in the Women’s National Affairs Conference sponsored by the Ministry of the Interior on March 7-8, 2011, and relevant ministries were invited to study and amend the draft outline according to the conclusions reached in the aforementioned conference. The Committee of Women’s Rights Promotion passed in principle the revised “Gender Equality Policy Outline” in its 36th meeting and asked the Ministry of the Interior to amend it according to suggestions made by committee members before submitting it to the Executive Yuan for approval and publication. Premier Wu said the outline will become the blueprint for the country to promote gender equality policy. Based on the three basic concepts -- “Gender equality is the core value of protecting social justice,” “Enhancing women’s rights is the primary task of promoting gender equality,” and “Gender mainstreaming is an effective way to implement people-oriented policies,” the policy outline covers the core issues in seven chapters: “power, decision-making and influence,” “employment, economy and welfare,” “education, culture and media,” “personal safety and justice,” “health, medical treatment and care,” “population, marriage and family,” and “environment, energy and science and technology.” To enable government departments to achieve the vision of gender equality, each chapter explains the concept of women’s rights and gender equality and proposes concrete measures as the direction and goal for various ministries to promote gender equality.
　In the chapter on “power, decision-making and influence,” it said the government will set up in 2012 the Department of Gender Equality under the Executive Yuan as the national administrative unit responsible for promoting women’s rights and gender equality, and the reserved-seats for women electoral system will be changed into one based on the principle of allocating seats in proportion to gender, and increase its proportion to enhance and promote women’s career advancement and participation in decision-making.
　Regarding “employment, economy and welfare,” the government will provide women with more vocational trainings, increase channels of resources and service windows for financing and business creation, encourage enterprises to establish gender-friendly workplace, and implement such gender-friendly measures as corporate child care, maternity leave, paternity leave, maternity leave without pay, family care leave and flexible working hours, promoting a balance between work and family.
　In the chapter on “population, marriage and family,” it said the government will pay child-rearing benefits, build a high quality, affordable, available to all environment for birth and child-rearing, establish a perfect care system to provide services needed at different stages of human life, so as to gradually implement the ideal of making provision for the aged till their death and enabling the young to grow up.
　With regard to “education, culture and media,” the government will strive to reduce gender segregation in education at all levels and university departments, encourage students to develop professional skills that suit their individual characters, eliminate cultural contents of gender degradation and discrimination in such traditional rituals and customs as marriage, burial, worship and inheritance, and encourage media self-discipline to produce and broadcast programs which put great emphasis on gender equality to eliminate gender discrimination and gender stereotypes.
　In the chapter on “personal safety and justice,” it said the government will create the “zero tolerance of gender violence” social awareness, enhance the gender awareness of judicial and law-enforcement authorities when handling cases in which women and children are involved, establish the victim protection mechanism and programs in the judicial and police system, improve law and order, and check public space to create a safe and secure living environment.
　In the chapter on “health, medical treatment and care,” it said the government will plan long-term care legislation and various supporting measures to let caregivers and the cared enjoy a life of dignity, health and safety, and strive to create an environment which provides friendly medical care and respects women’s right to seek medical treatment according to their own decisions, so that the medical care and health system can more fully meet the health needs of different genders.
　Regarding “environment, energy, and science and technology,” the government will reduce gender segregation in the fields of environment, energy and science and technology, strengthen women’s participation in capacity building and decision-making in the fields of environment, energy, science and technology, engineering, transportation, disaster prevention and relief, and reconstruction, and ensure the gender perspective is included in the government-led scientific researches, technology R&D, energy policy, carbon reduction and climate adaptation, urban space and transportation planning and design.
　Finally, the government hopes that publishing the policy outline will continue opening the gender perspective of all walks of life in the society, and gradually implement gender equality for the country to stride towards a co-govern, co-enjoy, win-win sustainable society.

[News]World’s Heavyweight Scholars Gathered to Witness Taiwan’s Democratic Achievements in International Conference on Democracy in East Asia and Taiwan in Global Perspective on August 24-25

Bureau of Social Affairs, Taichung City Government-News-系統管理 — 2011-10-25

　To celebrate the 100th founding anniversary of the Republic of China, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) specially entrusted the Department of Political Science, National Taiwan University with sponsoring the International Conference on Democracy in East Asia and Taiwan in Global Perspective at GIS NTU Convention Center in Taipei on August 24-25 to review democratic and political achievements made by the ROC over the past century and look forward the vision for the country’s future democratic development. The MOI noted that 19 distinguished scholars of democracy studies from eight East Asian, European and American countries were invited to witness Taiwan’s achievements of constitutional democracy together with local people in the two-day seminar. 　Minister of the Interior Yi-Huah Jiang said the year 2011 marks the 100th founding anniversary of the ROC and the country, being the first democratic republic in Asia, has not only created economic miracle in Taiwan but also won a reputation as the beacon of democracy in Asia because of the achievements of its democratic development. To show the historical depth of the ROC’s political development and let the world see Taiwan, the seminar, with the theme of “democracy in East Asia and Taiwan in global perspective,” was aimed at leading the public and the international community to review the history of the ROC’s democratic development and its importance in the world, while conveying the value of freedom and democracy by discussing the opportunities and challenges East Asia faced when building democracy. 　The MOI pointed out that Prof. Larry Diamond, a leading contemporary scholar in the field of democracy studies, and Prof. Francis Fukuyama, a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford, are invited to give keynote speeches on “East Asia amid the Receding Tide of the Third Wave of Democracy” and “The Historical Pattern of Political Development in East Asia” respectively in the seminar. Larry Diamond is presently a professor of Sociology and Political Science at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and supervises the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. At Stanford, he teaches courses on democratic development. Francis Fukuyama is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and he is best know for his book “The End of History and the Last Man,” which argued that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies may signal the end point of humanity’s socio-cultural evolution, and the theory with far-reaching influence has been subject to lively discussions up to now. 　Other heavyweight scholars invited to present papers include Prof. Pippa Norris, the McGuire Lecturer in comparative politics at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University who has served as the director of the Democratic Governance Group at the United Nations Development Programme; Prof. Marc F. Plattner, vice president of the National Endowment for Democracy, coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and co-director of the International Forum on Democratic Studies; Stephan Haggard, the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Professor at San Diego Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California and director of the Korea-Pacific Program at UC San Diego; Benjamin Reilly, senior visiting professor at The Johns Hopkins University and professor of policy and governance at Australian National University; and Minxin Pei, who was an adjunct senior associate in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is the director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at the Claremont McKenna College. 　The MOI noted that this seminar is expected to be very exciting because, in addition to two keynote speeches, there are panel discussions on the six topics: East Asia in the global context of democratic development; system, culture and democratic consolidation in East Asia; political and economic analysis of democracy in East Asia; challenges faced by democratic development in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia; prospect of mixed form of government in East Asia; and Taiwan’s role in the democratization of mainland China. The Ministry said domestic and foreign experts and scholars in the field of political science, students of relevant university departments and graduate schools, and those who are concerned about Taiwan’s democratic development are welcome to participate in the international conference.

[News]New System of Public Assistance Implemented on July 1, Government Subsidizes Low- and Middle-income Citizens 1/2 Health Insurance Premium

Bureau of Social Affairs, Taichung City Government-News-系統管理 — 2011-10-20

　Minister of the Interior Yi-Huah Jiang held a press conference on June 30 to announce that the new system of public assistance will be implemented starting on July 1. In order to implement concretely this important policy, the central government and local governments have begun related preparations since the revised Public Assistance Act was passed by the Legislative Yuan. After the revised Act was promulgated on December 29, 2010, the Ministry of the Interior has for half a year successively made related preparations, including inviting local governments to discuss the formulation of relevant sub-laws, updating examination information system, and sponsoring 13 educational trainings and workshops for more than 1,400 examiners, hoping the new system of public assistance can be implemented smoothly through thorough preparations in advance and sufficient funding. 　Minister Jiang noted that when the new system is implemented, preliminary estimates show that low-income households will increase from 112,000 (with 273,000 members) to 133,000 (with 327,000 members) and there will be 183,000 newly added middle-to-low-income households (with 536,000 members). The government will take care of a total of 316,000 low-income and middle-to-low-income households (with 863,000 members), with the coverage rate increasing from 1.18% to 3.7% of the total population. 　The focal points of the revised Public Assistance Act include raising the poverty line for more people to get assistance, relaxing the scope of calculating the number of members living in the household and listing household-owned fixed assets, lowering the criteria for determining who is not capable of employment, relaxing the method of calculating specific subjects’ income from work, strengthening welfare incentives for employment; adding new welfare measures such as subsidizing 50% of health insurance premium for middle-to-low-income households and reducing 30% of tuition and student living fees for members of middle-to-low-income households under the age of 25 studying in high school or higher level educational institutions. Relevant competent authorities have to provide supplementary budgets totaling NT$4,834,679,000 for promote the various measures. 　Minister Jiang said the Ministry has since June 13 publicized related information about the new system of public assistance through multiple channels for the public to know, including using electronic subtitles shown by the Government Information Office at 75 locations in Taiwan, putting up posters on Taiwan Railways train cars, and TV mini-segment and radio broadcasting. Propaganda materials have been sent to city and county governments and township, village and district offices, and the Ministry of the Interior has sent a circular asking township, village and district offices to distribute relevant materials to local residents through village and borough offices for more people to get the message. 　In addition to using advocacy channels of the administrative branch, the Ministry of the Interior will also send the propaganda materials to all members of the Legislative Yuan soon, hoping more people will get the information about the new system of public assistance through their representatives. If people do not understand certain measures under the new system of public assistance, please call the city or county government, or village or district office of domicile, or call 1957, the Ministry of the Interior toll-free welfare hotline, for inquiry.