Skirt requirement for female police officers dropped

By Alison Hsiao / Staff Reporter





An amendment to the Police Uniforms Act (警察服制條例) cleared the legislative floor yesterday, scrapping a clause that required female police officers to wear skirts in summer.

To comply with the Enforcement Act of Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (消除對婦女一切形式歧視公約施行法), Article 8 of which requires “all government units [to] review all rules, regulations and administrative measures administered by them in accordance with the Convention,” the Executive Yuan proposed to amend the Police Uniforms Act to abolish the regulations that have come in conflict with the convention.

The legislature passed the amendment bill, scrapping the requirement that designates pant-skirts as female police officers’ summertime uniform.

New Power Party Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said after the passage that the NPP welcomes the change that allows female police officers to wear pants in the spirit of gender equality.

“Since the Ministry of the Interior has now been given the right to draw up [new] guidelines for police uniforms and badges, I would like to make a suggestion on the new rules,” Huang said.

Many have complained that the names of the police officers are nowhere to be seen on their uniforms, he said.

“The people are thereby barred from identifying the subject of the public authority when the police perform their official duties,” he said.

Huang said he would therefore advise the ministry to attach name tags to uniforms as part of its revisions to the new uniform guidelines.

“This would enhance the people’s trust in the police’s performance of duties and improve the relationship between the police and the public,” Huang said.

Huang added the ministry’s National Conscription Agency has been requiring substitute service draftees to wear nametags, “which shows that the ministry recognizes the need for identification.”