Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to all the women's rights experts, ambassadors, and business and cultural representatives from around the world!
I'm really very delighted to be here tonight with you, because I have tried very hard to promote the protection of human rights in Taiwan, and also to bring Taiwan's efforts in line with those of our international counterparts. I'm also very delighted to see some of the experts who were also here last year to attend the first conference for 10 international human rights experts to review our first national report on Taiwan's human rights.
As you know, the Republic of China lost its representation in the United Nations in 1971 under General Assembly Resolution 2758. Ever since then, we have not been able to participate in UN-related activities. But for very important international conventions, such as the two human rights covenants and Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), we have tried to find a way to bypass the stringent rules governing the deposit of instruments of ratification, and to make these international conventions a part of domestic law.
How have we been able to do it? Well, as you know, with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, we had to deposit the instruments of ratification with the UN Secretariat. And three months after that, the convention would enter into force for our country. This is the rule prescribed by the convention itself. We knew that it wouldn't be possible for us to do that, but we did it anyway. We deposited our instrument of ratification, which I signed in 2009, with the Secretariat of the UN in New York. As expected, it was rejected. But the month before that we had already passed the enforcement act of the two covenants, so they've become part of our domestic law anyway, which can be applied by the executive and the judicial branches of the government. So, many judicial decisions now apply the provisions of the two covenants as part of domestic law.
So by doing that, in essence we have linked our domestic legal system with hundreds of international conventions which may affect people's rights in this country. So this is something we feel very proud of.
On the other hand, when we invited international experts to Taiwan to review the human rights performance of the government and the people in this country, in addition to international experts, we also invited local NGOs to participate in the process. That actually had an interesting and impressive impact on the 10 experts. They found that this format was even better than the traditional way of having the conference held in New York, with the participation of only international experts, and without the local participants. Why? Because the local participants understand local things much better than the international experts. So, with their participation, the discussion was more lively, and more comprehensive. After the discussion last year, the experts put forward 82 recommendations and opinions which already incorporated most of the opinions of the local human rights NGOs. When I hosted a luncheon for the experts, they said they hope the United Nations Human Rights Commission could also adopt this formula, and they hope these conferences could be carried out in different places, instead of New York.
Well, back to the question of CEDAW, I think the previous speakers have said whatever they want to say tonight. I don't have anything new to add. But I just want to call your attention to an interesting development in this country in terms of women's rights. As you know, in 1991 we revised our Constitution to give more protection to women. The language of the amendment goes like this: "The State shall protect the dignity of women, safeguard their personal safety, eliminate sexual discrimination, and further substantive gender equality ." Well, I feel very honored that I participated personally in the drafting of that article.
In terms of political participation, in our Legislative Yuan, which is our national parliament, over 33% of the members are women. This is a very high percentage. And we have other branches of government called the Examination Yuan (考試院) and the Control Yuan (監察院). The terms of members of these two branches will be up in August and September, respectively, so it was my job to nominate new members for approval by the Legislative Yuan of my government. And in my nominations, 42.1% and 41.4% of the nominees, respectively, are women. This is the first time in our constitutional history that these percentages have been this high.
Another thing that I want to emphasize is parental leave subsidies. This is quite unique in this country, compared with other countries in the Asia-Pacific community. A young couple with children less than three years old can apply for a parental leave subsidy, which is about 60% of their insured salaries, for six months. Both the wife and the husband may apply. This is quite new, and helps young couples very much. When we first started roughly six years ago, very few people were optimistic about the outcome. They feared that most business owners would not cooperate with this new legislation. But they were all wrong. Actually, many small- and medium-sized businesses have actively used this to encourage their employees. So far, we have spent US$745 million to pay benefits to over 254,000 people. A lot of people are using this for their families and babies. And, as far as I know, out of the 34 countries around the Pacific rim, we are the only country that has done this. So we are very proud of this, and it has a very positive effect by encouraging people to have more babies.
The last thing I want to tell you is that just 10 days ago I attended the joint commencement of seven military academies, and I was very surprised to find that at five of these seven military academies, the top-ranking graduates were ladies. In the Army Academy, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy, the top students were all ladies. This was the first time in our history. I don't know what's wrong with the men, but this is the case. The women have done so well. For instance, at the Army Academy, the top student came from the Department of Electrical Engineering. And the situations were almost the same at the Naval Academy and the Air Force Academy.
In our armed forces at the moment, altogether 8% are ladies, and they have taken up jobs not just in the more civilian sectors of the army, air force, or navy, but also combat missions, like helicopter pilots or even in our missile regiment. And, as you know, in modern warfare you don't rely on your physical strength, but rather, your brain. And when it comes to physical strength, I have on many occasions had dinner with rank-and-file soldiers, and I've met quite a few women soldiers. I just ask them: "How many pushups can you do?" We have a minimum requirement. Most of them can do over 60. I would ask the honored guests in the audience: "How many of you can do that?" So, you can see, we not only have more routes for development for our young ladies, but also, they have done very well, and actually, well beyond our expectations.
I hope you will all enjoy staying in Taiwan. Tomorrow you're going to have the first review committee. I hope this kind of conference will enable you to understand that this government has tried its best to show our commitment to human rights protection, and our sincerity and determination.
Thank you very much.