關於 equality of opportunity example ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

ZERO DISCRIMINATION DAY

Today is #ZeroDiscriminationDay and the start of Women’s Month! Everyone has the right to live with respect and dignity with ZERO DISCRIMINATION. The theme of this year’s Day is the fight against discrimination faced by women and girls, and the organization aims to raise awareness, mobilize action, and promote equality.

Gender discrimination has been continuing to threaten the hard work & progress for Human Rights. On this day, let us remember that AIDS remains the biggest killer of women aged 15-49 years. To end AIDS by 2030, we must collectively work together and end gender based violence inequality, insecurity and ensure that women and girls have equal access to education, health and employment.

Governments must promote inclusive social and economic growth. They must eliminate discriminatory laws, policies and practices in order to ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities.

But we can all play our part by calling out discrimination where we see it, by setting an example or by advocating to change the law. We all have a role to play in ending discrimination and so reducing inequalities.

Ending inequality requires transformative change. Greater efforts are needed to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and there is a need to invest more in health, education, social protection and decent jobs.

The Zero Discrimination Day join us raising awareness about the inequalities that prevent people from living a full and productive life and demanding that governments fulfil their commitments and obligations to end all forms of discrimination.

AINIE HAZIQAH
Ketua Wanita Muda Negara

#ZeroDiscriminationDay
#EqualOpportunity
#GenerationEquality
#TeamWanitaMudaNegara

【台美日共同守護印太安全】
　　
美國、日本、台灣三國智庫共同主辦「2020台美日三邊印太安全對話」，包括蔡英文總統、美國前國務院助卿坎博(Kurt Campbell)、前國防部印太安全助理部長薛瑞福(Randall Schriver)、日本前駐美大使佐佐木賢一郎等重要人士都與會。
　　
我也參與三國國會議員的對談，與羅致政委員、陳以信委員、美國聯邦眾議員貝拉(Ami Bera)以及日本眾議員鈴木馨祐，交流2020後的印太及台海情勢與願景。
　　
結果準備厚厚一疊的英文講稿幾乎沒派上用場，講太HIGH不小心就脫稿演出....。無論如何還是提供原本的講稿跟大家參詳，一起來練習英文吧：
　　
　　　　
2020 Taiwan-US-Japan Trilateral Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue

Hello moderator, fellow panelists, I am Taiwan legislator Freddy Lim.

This year, due to the pandemic, we can only conduct this panel online. I’m still very glad to be invited to attend this event and exchange ideas with these great panelists. Here I want to share my views on today’s main topic: “Challenges and Opportunities in the Indo-Pacific Region and the Taiwan Strait in 2020 & Beyond”.

First I want to start with the conventional positioning of Taiwan under the established international order.

After WWII, the international order led by the allies dragged Taiwan into China’s civil war. Since then, Taiwan's been struggling with the “One China” dispute, unable to gain independence and world recognition like many other colonies.

Even though Taiwanese people have built an independent and democratic country after half a century of hard work, now we enjoy freedom and human rights, the international community still isolates Taiwan. One of the main reasons is obviously China.

The established international community viewed China as a huge economic opportunity, a partner that would eventually carry out political reforms and be integrated into modern international order. Under this conventional thinking, the international community is willing to help China ease and suppress many of its unpleasant problems, including the thorny "Democratic Taiwan."

This has reduced Taiwan to merely China’s “Taiwan Problem”. We’re even slandered as the “troublemaker” of the Taiwan Strait; As a result, the respect that Taiwan deserves continues to be shelved, and the active role we can play, the contributions we can make in the international community are also ignored.

However, this established international structure is now changing.

After decades of appeasement policy, and acquiring WTO membership in 2001, China’s various structural changes that the world anticipated have never taken place. On the contrary, China’s been using organized measures, such as bribing, infiltration, and hybrid-warfare, to undermine international norms. It’s worked hard to manipulate and control international organizations, in order to project its influence onto the world. These actions have been even more distinct after Xi Jinping became President of China in 2012.

Internationally, China implemented debt-trap diplomacy on many countries through the Belt and Road Initiative. It established Confucius Institutes around the world, which are basically intelligence operations in the name of culture. Chinese tech giant, Huawei also aids China’s international surveillance. Not to mention China’s relentless expansion in the South China Sea, building military bases, creating man-made islands. This year, it’s even more serious. We witnessed the long time Chinese infiltration into UN organizations. The favoritism towards China helped its cover-up, which led to the dysfunction of WHO, ultimately causing the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Domestically, the Chinese government not only failed to implement any political reforms, but it also created the “Social Credit” system with advanced technology, to surveil and control its own people; In addition, the Chinese government built the notorious “Reeducation Camps” - concentration camps in reality, in Tibet, Xingjian, where human rights conditions were already in a bad shape. Even the Hong Kong people, who were supposed to be protected by the promise of “One Country, Two Systems”, their freedom and human rights were completely destroyed by the Chinese government.

These compelling examples show that there is some serious fallacy in the conventional way of viewing China. All facts point to this: Taiwan is not the problem. China is the problem. China is the troublemaker of the Taiwan Strait. It’s the troublemaker of the Indo-Pacific region. It’s even the troublemaker of the entire world.

Under decades of collective misjudgement, China was allowed to become the most terrifying, largest digital authoritarian government in human history. It’s a new form of dictatorship. As a response, many countries have vastly changed their China policy in recent years, thus the change of international structure.

This brings me to my next point: Give Taiwan the status it deserves. Let us contribute to the international society.

In a new international structure, Taiwan shouldn’t be categorized as “China’s Taiwan Problem”. Instead, we should be one of the key countries for international cooperation, responding to the new type of dictatorship.

Taiwan has faced authoritarian China on the front line for decades. Many countries are now facing the problem of China's infiltration under its United Front programs. Taiwan started dealing with the same problems 10 to 20 years ago. We have gained a lot of experience to contribute to the international community.

Taking the COVID pandemic as an example, Taiwan has studied and analyzed the actual situation and the information provided by the Chinese government with a serious and high-vigilance attitude. Based on our experience and lessons learned from the China SARS epidemic in 2001, we decisively formed a series of epidemic preventive measures. We have handled the crisis with the principle of openness and transparency. Our people have been self-disciplined and willing to cooperate. All of this demonstrates the high level of democracy in Taiwan’s society.

After the domestic epidemic was brought under control, Taiwan has continued to share our epidemic prevention supplies and the experiences on forming epidemic prevention policies with the world.

Although Taiwan was suppressed, even excluded by China in various international organizations in the past, we’ve been doing our best to comply with the norms & regulations of international organizations. We always actively contribute every time we have the opportunity. What I want to say is, all of this proves Taiwan could be a reliable partner in the international community. We are capable of working with other countries to solve major problems. We deserve our seats and participation in international organizations.

Regarding the impact of U.S. change of administration.

Now the U. S. presidential election is over and the administration is currently under transition. Many countries, including Taiwan, are concerned about whether the new U.S. government will change its course on foreign policy, especially its China policy. However, the "Rebalance (of Asia-Pacific Region)" proposed by the Obama administration in 2011, was in fact already a strategic adjustment in response to the rise of China and possible subsequent expansion.

The Trump administration further proposed the Indo-Pacific strategy in 2017 to promote and uphold international law and regulations, aiming to ensure every country has the liberty to be free from oppression and coercion. I believe that both parties in the U.S. understand the root cause of the Indo-Pacific regional problem comes from the Chinese government. Even for the Biden administration, it will have to provide practical responses. Facing the new structure, they can’t just go back to the traditional thinking of the last century.

As for Taiwan, the pro-Taiwan acts in the U.S., such as the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018, Taiwan Travel Act, Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement, were passed with strong consensus between the Republicans and the Democrats. I believe Taiwan could be a key partner to the international community and play an active role in the free world. This isn’t just the consensus of the two parties in the U.S., but will be the consensus of all democratic countries.

In a progressive aspect, the International community can benefit from a wider recognition of Taiwan.

In recent years, the performance of Taiwanese society in terms of epidemic prevention performance, human rights, gender equality, marriage equality, and open government are actually in line with many progressive ideas and visions. The ideas and visions that many democratic countries have long supported. Therefore, I’m quite optimistic that, after 2020, Taiwan can make even greater progress, on multiple levels and in broader aspects, contributing to the international community.

Finally, I want to emphasize again that to truly resolve regional problems, we need dynamic multilateral cooperation. But this must not be a return to the conventional thinking of the past century, which was "expecting" China to abide by the international order. The outdated thinking had been proved to be a failure. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a series of Chinese infiltration and aggression after its rise in recent years, which became one of the most difficult issues in the world. I believe after 2020, U.S., Japan, and Taiwan can establish a new model of international cooperation through deeper collaboration and communication. And hopefully, this model will maximize the security of the Indo-Pacific region and promote peace, stability and development in the region.

This concludes my speech, thank you all for listening.
Lastly, I’d like to express my gratitude to the moderators, my fellow panelists, and the organizers of this event.
I wish everyone peace and good health. Thank you.

Stand up. Respect ✊

(Update: 中文繹版連結：https://www.facebook.com/329728177143445/posts/1800273350088913/)

“An open letter to Eric Kwok, and for everyone re homophobia, discrimination and bullying”

Dear Eric,

Imagine this. You are one of the contestants on a TV talent show. You are sitting in a room with other hopefuls and one of the judges walks into the room and demanded this: “Raise your hand if you are not homophobic.”

I’m very sure you will raise your hand.

You don’t have to answer me whether or not you really are homophobic. But stay with the feeling inside your mind. How do you feel?

Your feelings are most likely the same as the feelings of your contestants when you walked into a room and asked them to raise their hands to declare their sexual orientation publicly. Because in this day and age, homophobia is just as “controversial” as homosexuality, if not more.

The reason why I’m writing this open letter to you is because after reading your apology, I want to take the opportunity to address to you, and everyone out there, the need for proper etiquette regarding LGBT issues, and to address the forms of micro-aggression, bullying and discrimination the LGBT community faces everyday especially in the workplace.

I’m taking this incident seriously because from my personal experience, this is not just a one-time slip-up for you.

I remember long time ago I was so looking forward to meeting and working with you because you are, after all, Eric Kwok the great songwriter.

You were very friendly when we talked privately. Then I started to notice how once there were audiences, media or other people around and when the cameras were turned on, you would start making insinuating and demeaning gay jokes about me and in front of me. Jokes and comments even my closest friends wouldn’t dare to make in public.

At first, I didn’t really pay too much attention. I just brushed it off as juvenile and trivial. In fact, I had been so used to these jokes since growing up that I learned not to react much.

However, as time progressed and we worked on more occasions, the same thing would happen repeatedly. The teasing and the stereotypical gay jokes continued and you would make sure that the spotlight would fall on me afterwards. The jokes no longer felt light. They felt hostile, even vindictive.

In fact, it felt like bullying.

One of these incidents was well documented in tabloids back then and you can still look it up yourself on the internet.

I came to the realization that it was not just a one-time thing. I don’t know if it’s intentional or unintentional but it’s definitely a habit and a pattern.

So many questions would be in my mind every time after working with you. Why does Eric do that every time? Is he picking on me? Does he hate me? Is he homophobic? Does he think homosexuality is something funny? Does he do this to other people too? Did I do something that pissed him off? I remember I was nothing but courteous. So why do I deserve this?

I had no answers for all of these questions. All I knew was I became fearful of working with you, dreading what words would fall out of your mouth to put me in an awkwardly embarassing position. But still I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. You’re from California you shouldn’t be homophobic. I even defended you in my head by telling myself to loosen up.

But it’s not just you. Throughout my years in the entertainment industry, I have encountered and endured so many chauvinistic “tough guys” who like to use homosexuality as a laughing stock or source of bad comedy which were all discriminating and demeaning, yet not funny.

It’s not only me. I’m sure many people of the LGBT community face this everyday in their workplace. People around them would claim their intentions were harmless but we all knew deep down that these “jokes” have the power to put people someone in an embarrassing, inferior and even threatening positions.

We kept quiet and tolerated. Sometimes we even felt obligated to laugh along just so we couldn’t afford to look “petty” or “stiff”, especially in front of people of higher authority and stature.

So Eric I want to ask you.

Why have you been so obsessed with my sexuality all these years?

Why are you so fascinated by other people’s sexuality?

Why is being gay such a huge issue to you even to this day that you had to make it the first thing you asked your contestants?

Why you also had to specifically make a post on social media about that fact you questioned people about their sexuality?

Why do you take so much pride publicly in your ability to guess who are the gay contestants even when they weren’t ready to share that information?

And most of all why do you find all this to be so funny?

To begin with one’s sexual orientation is a very personal thing which others have no right to intrude, even in the entertainment industry where you are supposed to be fine with “controversy”.

This is for you and everyone out there: using your power and authority to demand someone to declare his or her sexual orientation, especially in a work environment, is ancient, barbaric and unacceptable.

Kicking someone out of the closet is just pure evil.

The fact you did what you did, especially with your stature and on broadcast TV, is not only wrong, but also you are telling the Hong Kong audience that it’s alright to continue this form of intrusion and micro aggression that the LGBT community wants to see gone.

You’re leading a very poor example by giving Hong Kong audience the impression that being gay is still a taboo.

How are your contestants, who are boys of young age, going to offer new perspectives to the Hong Kong audience under your guidance if you perpetuate stereotyping and demonstrate to them that being gay is still an issue?

I feel sorry for any contestants who are in fact gay sitting in that room that day too. They must have been traumatized seeing the way you forced your inquisition. The impression you left them with is that the entertainment industry is still a very unfriendly place for gays. Is that what you want them to think?

But most of all, it’s the attitude, tone and manner with which you shared about this incident on social media, giving people the impression that any matter regarding sexual orientation is still something shameful and laughable, which is on top of list the thing that the LGBT community fights hard everyday to change.

When you said in your apology you “have great respect for gay people, especially their hard fight for equality” I became baffled as what you did, in the past to me or in that room to the boys, is the exact thing that makes the LGBT community’s ongoing fight for equality so difficult.

Putting people down, perpetuate stereotypes, heckling and ridiculing yet making it look OK is anything but liberal and respectful, or Californian. I don’t see any “entertainment values” that are of good taste if they are made up at the expense of other people’s struggle.

If this incident happened in America, where you grew up, you would’ve gotten yourself in such hot waters that you probably can’t get out of.

I just want you and everyone out there to know that it’s not okay. And it never was. Never will be.

Being “as liberal as it gets” is great. Having gay friends is great too. Having dinner with your gay friends is absolutely fabulous! Playing all these cards to avoid being labelled as “homophobic” is very convenient. But having class, empathy, kindness and authentic respect is a completely different territory. These don’t come automatically with backgrounds.

At this point you don’t owe me an apology. I just hope that after this incident you can really start working and living with the essences of a truly liberal and creative individual. Inspire changes and end stereotypes. Start new trends and break old patterns. Embrace and not segregate. Do the work.

I had been away from Hong Kong and the industry for a few years now. It breaks me heart that I have to write this sort of open letter when it’s already 2018. I want to make this industry a safer, nicer and more accepting place to work in when I return. I want members of the LGBT community in Hong Kong, who have been so supportive of me and my music, to also have safer and nicer working environment in their respective lives.

I don’t mind coming off as an over-reacting petty bitch with no sense of humour if my message finally comes through and everyone, including you, “gets it”. I rather have no sense of humour than a bad one.

To all the contestants of the show. If anyone ever asks you if you are gay and you are not ready to discuss, it’s OK to stand up for yourself and say this: “It’s a rude question to begin with. You have no right to get an answer from me to begin with. And it doesn’t matter. It SHOULDN’T matter. It’s 2018. I hope one day I can use my craft to inspire the world and to make this become a non-issue.”

But if you are ready to be open, you have my complete support and love.

Let’s hope that through acceptance, learning and effort, one day there will no longer be any “controversial questions”. Wouldn’t we like that Eric?

Yours truly,
Pong

#LGBT
#homophobia
#safeworkplace
#中文版稍後會有
Eric Kwok 郭偉亮