President Ma Ying-jeou met on the afternoon of March 11 with a delegation led by Marjorie Margolies, President of Women's Campaign International (WCI). During the meeting, President Ma briefed his visitors on the ROC's successes in promoting women's rights, and expressed hope that Taiwan and the US can build on their already strong ties by working together on behalf of the rights of women throughout the world.
In remarks, President Ma noted that the WCI delegation was in Taiwan to attend the 2016 Workshop on Enhancing Prosperity and Opportunity for Women in the Asia-Pacific Region. The workshop, hosted jointly by entities from Taiwan and the US, had been held earlier that same day, raising the level of international concern for women's issues while promoting greater cooperation between Taiwan and the US on those issues. The president further noted that Ms. Margolies is an important women's leader in the US who, since founding the WCI in 1998, has served in the US House of Representatives, chaired the National Women's Business Council, and served as the director and deputy chair of the US Delegation to the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. In addition, she was a television journalist for over 20 years, winning five Emmy Awards, and is currently a Fels Faculty Member at the University of Pennsylvania.
Turning his attention to the other members of the delegation, President Ma mentioned that WCI senior instructor Valerie Biden Owens is the executive vice president of a media consulting firm, and has served on the National Board of the Women's Leadership Forum of the Democratic National Committee. She has taught courses in Liberia and Azerbaijan in an active effort to help emerging democracies address women's issues. As the younger sister of US Vice President Joe Biden, she has also taken part in every one of her brother's election campaigns over the years, and is thus a rare example in US history of a woman who has experience managing both senatorial and presidential campaigns. The president then noted that Stephenie Foster currently serves as a senior advisor and counselor to the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues at the US Department of State, and has over 30 years of experience in advancing public policy on women's issues. Ms. Foster was dispatched to Taiwan by US State Department Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Catherine Russell to attend the workshop and deliver a keynote address there.
Commenting on the ROC government's efforts and achievements in promoting women's rights, President Ma noted that the government here has been working for more than 40 years in support of the women's rights movement. The Executive Yuan established the Committee of Women's Rights Promotion in 1997, which was expanded after he took office in 2008 and renamed the Gender Equality Committee of the Executive Yuan. The Gender Equality Committee was reorganized in order to implement the Gender Equality Policy Guidelines of 2011, and is chaired by the ROC premier, "an indication," he said, "of the great importance we attach to this issue." The government in 2011 also incorporated the content of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) into domestic law, and since then has been amending other legislation to eliminate provisions that conflict with CEDAW requirements. In addition, the ROC government introduced a parental leave allowance in 2009, and in the seven years since then has made over 1.95 million disbursements under the system. One-fifth of the benefit applicants have been men and the other four-fifths women, and cumulative payouts have now exceeded NT$34 billion. It is thus clear, said the president, that men and women in families here are sharing the responsibility of childcare.
President Ma also mentioned that the women's rights situation in Taiwan has been steadily improving thanks to efforts made in recent years. In terms of gender equality, using the definition and statistical methodology of the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) most recent Gender Inequality Index, which covers the year 2014, Taiwan ranked fifth in the world and first in Asia. Women also participate very actively in politics here. As for human development, according to the methodology used in the 2014 Huang Development Index compiled by the UNDP's Human Development Report 2015, women hold a higher percentage of parliamentary seats in Taiwan than in Singapore, Japan, and South Korea, and roughly twice the percentage held by women in the US. Women also currently account for 38% and 50%, respectively, of the members of Taiwan's Examination Yuan and Control Yuan. This clearly shows, he said, that Taiwan is quite advanced in terms of women's political participation.
As for how women are faring in the private sector, President Ma stated that according to the White Paper on Small and Medium Enterprises in Taiwan, issued annually by Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs, over one-third of all business owners in Taiwan are women, and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2015/16 Global Report indicates a female TEA (total entrepreneurial activity) rate of 4.9% for Taiwan. This is higher than the female TEA rate for the United Kingdom, Germany, and Malaysia, and stands as ample proof of women's steadily growing influence in Taiwan, said the president.
Commenting on Taiwan-US relations, President Ma stated that high-level trust between the two nations is now the strongest it's been since he took office in 2008. Two different US presidents and numerous other senior American officials have publicly praised Taiwan. After he was elected president in 2008, former US President George W. Bush sent a message of congratulations in which he called Taiwan "a beacon of democracy to Asia and the world." President Barack Obama in November 2014 delivered an address in Australia, where he stated that Taiwan had built a thriving democracy. And Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and current Secretary of State John Kerry have repeatedly affirmed the excellent state of Taiwan-US relations, and called Taiwan an important security and economic partner of the US.
Turning to the topic of Taiwan-US cooperation in other areas, President Ma noted that the two nations launched a Pacific Islands Leadership Program in December 2012 to provide training to highly promising young leaders from the Pacific Islands, including government officials and NGO personnel. In 2014, in response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa, the ROC donated 100,000 sets of personal protective equipment for use in the parts of West Africa affected by the disease, and also contributed US$1 million to the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) Foundation to help combat the outbreak. Taiwan also worked closely with the US last year to set up a training program in Tainan City in southern Taiwan, designed to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases, and a first course has already been completed. All these developments show that Taiwan-US interaction and cooperation have moved to a deeper level on many different fronts. The president expressed hope that the two sides can build on their already outstanding relations to jointly promote and maintain the rights of women throughout the world.