The Executive Yuan on Wednesday released a national report outlining the government’s implementation of a United Nations convention on promoting women’s rights, ahead of a review by a panel of international experts in November.
The Cabinet held a press conference to unveil the fourth national report on the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which covers the period 2017-2021.
Adopted in 1979 by the U.N. General Assembly, CEDAW defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination.
Despite not being a U.N. member state, Taiwan’s government adopted CEDAW in 2007 and has since begun publishing quadrennial reports.
However, it was not until the legislation in 2011 that the U.N. convention became a matter of domestic law in Taiwan.
The latest national report was put together by the Cabinet’s Gender Equality Committee in collaboration with different government agencies and civil society groups.
Wu Hsiu-chen (???), head of the committee, highlighted some of the achievements in the report, including the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2019 and the increasing support for the rights of same-sex couples in Taiwanese society that has since followed.
According to the report, 217 revisions were made to Taiwan’s laws from 2017 to 2021 in accordance with the recommendations from the review of the previous national report.
In addition, employees from 19 government agencies and 16 local government had completed basic training on CEDAW by the end of 2019 to help them better understand the convention and implement government policies accordingly, the report said.
According to the committee, the review of the fourth national report will be conducted in Taipei from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2 by at least four international experts who will subsequently publish a list of recommendations.
The review panel includes Heisoo Shin, Niklas Bruun, Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, and Esther Eghobamien-Mshelia, all of whom have served on the U.N.’s CEDAW committee in the past and will travel to Taiwan in a personal capacity, according to the committee.
Meanwhile, Cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (???) said Taiwan had strived to strengthen its human rights protections and promote gender equality over the years as it pursued economic development.
The current year will mark an important period for Taiwan in these efforts, Lo noted, as the country has launched two action plans that provide both the public and private sectors with guidelines about the protection of fishermen and the promotion of human rights.
He was referring to the Action Plan for Fisheries and Human Rights and the National Human Rights Action Plan.
Lo added that the government would continue working on the elimination of discrimination against women and promoting gender equality through legislative and policy reforms.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel