Don't marry foreigners, men told

An MP has come under fire for blaming the large number of unmarried women on local men who marry foreigners.

Chang Hsiao-feng said many Taiwanese women were denied the opportunity "to be loved by men" because of the 460,000 foreign spouses.

Human rights activists and foreign spouses protested outside the legislature yesterday. They said Mr Chang's comments reflected an unwarranted social stigma against unmarried women, and derided the comments as racist, because many of the foreign spouses come from poor countries in South-east Asia.

Better education and rising gender equality have sent marriage rates plummeting in Taiwan. Only 51 per cent of women over 20 are married, down from 75 per cent in the 1980s.

AP