The EU-Taiwan Gender Equality and Human Rights Training Course – Gender Mainstreaming Workshop took place in Taipei this week to promote wide-ranging exchanges in gender equality policy and experiences, the Executive Yuan's Department of Gender Equality said Wednesday.
Held from June 24 to June 26 under the auspices of a three-year gender equality cooperation and training framework launched this year by Taiwan and the European Union, the workshop embodies the goal of building a regional network for gender equality in Asia.
Organizers invited government officials from eight countries targeted by the New Southbound Policy—Australia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam—plus South Korea, to take part in discussions on gender mainstreaming strategies.
Taiwan and the EU have long been proponents of gender equality and human rights, the department said. The two sides began engaging in intensive exchanges on gender equality issues in 2015, and in 2018 agreed to establish the three-year gender equality cooperation and training framework. With Taiwan serving as the exchange platform, the framework attends to New Southbound countries as well as Japan and South Korea as its core targets, and leans on the EU as a partner in learning.
2019 is the inaugural year for the Taiwan-EU framework. In addition to this week's gender mainstreaming workshop, the two sides will also organize an Asia regional LGBTI human rights forum this October in Taiwan, focusing on marriage equality and gay rights protection.