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Women's issues neglected in Taiwan's legislative campaigning
By Debby Wu
November 29, 2004
"Gender issues are encountering a backlash, with public figures, especially
politicians, often abusing women verbally."
Huang Chang-ling, chairwoman of the Awakening Foundation and an associate
professor at National Taiwan University
While the pan-green and pan-blue camps are again busy trading insults during
the legislative election campaign, the space for debate on public policy --
especially minority issues -- has been neglected.
Many legislators and candidates, especially those from the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP), have said in private that this election was one
without any real public policy appeal, but rather a battle of vote allocation.
Indeed, the issues highlighted by the leaders from the both camps mostly stem
from shallow political squabbles, be it "soft coup" allegations or party
emblems, are all issues public care little about, especially voters in the
south.
So in an election where the party leaders are only interested in creating
disputes, there is a serious lack of public policy debate, not to mention
policies regarding the interests of minority groups.
But while the parties are not particularly elaborate on issues such as women's
rights in the run-up to the election, the women's groups have tried to raise
the public awareness last week by publishing a list of 30 candidates who have
contributed to bills related to women's rights.
The list includes legislative candidates from both camps, both male and female.
The recommended candidates range from DPP legislator Lai Ching-te (?~{Ge5B~}) to
People First Party (PFP) legislator Shen Chih-hwei (~{IrVG;[~}).
"When we made the recommendations, we did not consider a candidate's party
affiliation. We focused only on their efforts on the gender-related issues and
bills," said Tseng Chao-yuan (~{TxUQfB~}), the secretary-general of the Awakening
Foundation. "We did not take their record on other issues into consideration."
The Awakening Foundation was in charge of integrating opinions and
recommendations from different women's groups and generating the final list.
Yet only 24 out of the 225 incumbent legislators were chosen and the remaining
six have yet to be elected.
Tseng said that since only 13 percent of incumbents openly promoted women's
issues, the majority of the incumbents had not put much effort into the bills
related to women's rights or gender issues. The foundation was also
dissatisfied with the number of female legislative candidates running in the
legislative election.
Tseng also pointed out that while all parties had promised that female
candidates would take up at least one-third of all party nominations, every
party fell far behind the goal: the DPP set aside only 20 percent for female
candidates; the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) 26 percent; PFP 23 percent; and
the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) only 10 percent.
But the foundation also reckoned that number of female candidates had grown
since to the last election, and DPP and KMT made some attempts to fulfill the
goal of female candidates making up one-third in their legislator-at-large
list.
Huang Chang-ling (??~{Aa~}), chairwoman of Awakening Foundation and an associate
professor of political science at National Taiwan University, said that in the
fifth legislature, the most important bills to have passed are Gender Equality
Labor Law (?~{PT9$WwF=5H7(~}) in 2002, and the Gender Equality Education Law (~{PT~}?~{F=5H=LS}7(~})
this year, and an equally important amendment to the Civil Code which now
finally allows married women to manage their personal property and assets
independently.
"Basically, we still approve of the fifth legislature's performances on gender
issues. Gender issues are enjoying a steady progress in Taiwan, although we
hope the progress can accelerate," Huang said.
"But at the same time, the gender issues are encountering a backlash, with
public figures, especially politicians, often abusing women verbally," she
added.
Wang Fang-ping (~{Mu7
This is the second election Wang has been involved in. She also ran in the
Taipei City Councilor elections two years ago in order to raise awareness on
sex-workers' rights.
When asked whether the collective was again trying to seek support for
sex-workers' rights, Wang said it was still part of their appeal, but the
collective was now pursuing issues of a wider scope: Direct connection with the
voters and direct democracy.
Wang pointed out that during the presidential election, the collective
participated in the million spoiled ballots movement to protest both the
pan-green and pan-blue camps, but in the legislative election, the collective
was instead trying to get the voters participate in politics directly.
"I alone cannot change things. So this time I am getting my supporters to show
up at our activities first, and then participate in my campaign directly to
influence more people," she said.
"So I am really only a representative [of sex workers], and I am acting on
their opinions and ideas. I am not campaigning on my own ... it is more like
these supporters are campaigning on their own for their own beliefs," she
added.
Another legislative candidate, KMT legislator Hsu Chong-hsiung (~{PlVPP[~}), was one
of the nine males recommended for his concerns and efforts on the welfare of
the foreign spouses. Hsu recently noted that Southeast Asian immigrant women
are openly sold for marriage in Penghu County, and once again raised public
awareness about the rights of foreign women.
Hsu also said that he had been a member of the legislative Yuan's Social
Welfare Committee ever since he became a lawmaker, and during his 12-years in
politics, he has always been concerned with minority groups' welfare.
"I have tried to play the role of a guide but of course these results have been
a collective effort of the committee members," Hsu said of the passing of the
several gender-related bills.
A most interesting conflict on gender issues in the election stems from the
TSU's platform.
The TSU has been promoting the restriction of the rights of Chinese spouses
even though the action has been criticized heavily by women's groups. But the
TSU is also the only party that manages to deliver solid women's policies as
part of its platform.
The policies include raising the number of working women, and building a social
security network to provide women in need of daycare service for their
children, the elderly, and the disabled.
Although these policies do not receive much media coverage, women's groups have
noticed the party's efforts and is approving of its policies. But there is
internal conflict within the TSU about its policies on women's rights, embodied
by the party's only female lawmaker, Chien Lin Hui-chien (?~{AV;[>}~}).
Chien Lin is one of the 30 candidates recommended by the women's groups for her
support of related laws on women's security, but she is also very vocal about
limiting the rights of Chinese spouses.
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