Responsibilities for better carrying out the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) have been delegated, and the Executive Yuan will set up an ad hoc task force to oversee the promotion and implementation of foreign experts' recommendations on this subject, Executive Yuan officials stated.
This announcement was in response to a press conference earlier in the day in which legislators asserted that the Executive Yuan's Department of Gender Equality (DGE) had not taken any action on the experts' recommendations.
The Review and Presentation of the ROC (Taiwan) CEDAW Second National Report was held June 23-26 this year. At a June 26 press conference, five international women's rights experts presented a total of 35 conclusive recommendations. The written version of their proposals was edited and finalized in mid-July.
Under the guidance of Gender Equality Committee (GEC) member Theresa Der-lan Yeh, the DGE subsequently translated this document into Chinese, and the approved Chinese-language text was posted on the DGE's website on August 6.
Because the requisite tasks are multifarious and enormously complex, coordination and delineation of duties are necessary, officials said. On August 22, the Executive Yuan convened a meeting inviting the DGE and other relevant units of every yuan to name the leading and assisting agencies for implementation of each recommendation. These agencies will formulate concrete policies, plans and measures and determine the time and duration for execution of each task.
At the next preparatory meeting of the GEC, the DGE will report on effective mechanisms to ensure that ministries and government agencies will draft and implement relevant policies, programs and measures. Meanwhile, the Executive Yuan will establish a task force that will meet regularly with non-governmental organizations that have submitted shadow or alternative reports on the ROC's CEDAW implementation.
From October onward, the task force will organize meetings to provide consultation and guidance to and facilitate exchange of opinions among ministries and agencies while tracking their progress.
For more information, please consult the English-language "Review of Taiwan's Second Report on the Implementation of CEDAW: Conclusions and Recommendations of the Review Committee" on the GEC's website as well as a detailed Chinese-language description of ministries' relevant duties.