Taiwan Church News 3317 Edition September 21 - 27, 2015 Church Ministry All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women Are Urged To Scrape Down Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong In the morning on 19 September, a book launch about the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women was held by Taiwan New Century Foundation at NTU Alumini Resort. Inside this new book, there are 15 articles discussing various issues, including how to fight against the cultural discrimination, preventing violence against women and etc. Hsiao Chao-jun, an Associate Professor of National Dong Hwa University, expressed in the book launch that the countries, which are notorious of suppressing the human rights of women, are usually stopping short of state intervention or lacking a systematic mechanism to annihilate discrimination against women according to some related UN documents. She strongly criticized current status of Taiwan women as examples of discrimination: be their positions arranged in funeral ritual, exposures of their bodies in wedding ceremony or funeral service, even the status of being forced to quit their rights of family property inheritance and etc. In cultural custom, the situation that men are more advantageous than women is still prevalent in Taiwan, said Professor Hsiao. Lawyer Lu Seh-wei, author of the article of Gender Equality and Environmental Justice in this new book, pointed out that without domesticalization of international treaties there just wouldn't be too much progress achieved in the warfare of fighting discrimination against women. As any discrimination was systematically evolved, a very complex interaction between local economics, culture and class, any human rights ideal of international treaty was of no use if not domesticalized into local laws. As an example, Lu revealed that the women representatives in the reconstruction committee of Morakot typhoon was actually less than quota required by the law. The problem of discrimination against women would be deteriorated more, if women and the minority were not included, lamented Lu. Translated by Peter Wolfe |