It's been one year since Taiwan amended its gender equality laws to crack down on sexual harassment. But how much difference have the amendments made? TaiwanPlus speaks to Darice Chang, a women’s rights activist based in Taipei.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00It's been a year since Taiwan made changes to its gender equality laws.
00:05How do you view the results of those changes?
00:08Obviously, we're very pleased that the laws have been passed.
00:11These laws ensure that there are additional protections for victims.
00:16The penalties have been increased and also it shows that society as a whole and the state
00:22in particular prioritizes women and minorities' rights in terms of if things happen and they're
00:30able to report things.
00:31However, the legal reforms primarily address the formal mechanisms that are in place, so
00:38they don't really address the underlying societal issues that allowed these incidents to take
00:45place in the first place.
00:47However, this is not to say that there hasn't been any change whatsoever within civil society
00:51or on a societal front.
00:53So for example, we can see that there are more victims who are willing to come forth
00:58after the MeToo movement.
01:00In addition, there have been improvements within Taiwanese civil society to create environments
01:07that prioritize and have a better understanding of gender-based violence and power-based violence
01:14due to the MeToo movement that occurred last year.