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Women’s groups protest against new Cabinet

Women’s groups protest against new Cabinet

Women’s groups protest against new Cabinet

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Women’s rights groups protested Tuesday against the next Cabinet including only four women out of 40 members, despite the election of the nation’s first woman president.
The protest took place outside of the headquarters of the Democratic Progressive Party, whose chairperson, Tsai Ing-wen, was elected president last January 16. She and her Cabinet, to be headed by former Finance Minister Lin Chuan, will be sworn in on May 20.
Several prominent women’s rights groups, including the Awakening Foundation, the Homemakers Union and the Garden of Hope Foundation, sent delegates to take part in the event, which featured the overturning of a table as a sign of protest.
Later in the day, Tsai wrote on her Facebook site that she “had let down everybody,” but promised that with future appointments, she would do her best to make up for present shortcomings.
With only 10 percent of the new Executive Yuan team women, Tsai had returned the nation to the level at the time of the first direct presidential election in 1996, the activists said, accusing the new president of promoting herself but of leaving other women behind.
Prominent women’s rights activist Lee Yuan-chen said Tuesday she would stay away from Tsai’s inauguration banquet precisely because of the underrepresentation of women in the new Cabinet.
Tuesday’s protesters accused Lin of having recruited “uncles” and “grandpas” for his Cabinet, but his spokesman, Tung Chen-yuan, said he had consulted several women to serve on the government team, though it had been unexpectedly difficult to recruit them.
Gender equality would be a basic feature of all government decisions and policies, Tung said.