As protests and calls for a boycott of Taiwanese goods escalate in Brazil, Taiwanese relatives of Iruan Eugui Wu are facing increasing pressure to send the five-year-old orphan back to his Brazilian grandmother.
Legal papers from a Brazilian court -- which awarded custody of the boy to his grandmother, Rosa Leocia Ergui -- have been forwarded to Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to demand the immediate return of Iruan, who currently resides with his uncle in Kaohsiung County.
Meanwhile in Brazil, there are mounting campaigns against imported Taiwanese goods in a bid to pressure Taiwan to return the boy, whose Taiwanese father and Brazilian mother have both died.
The protests in Brazil have intensified following broadcasts of footage shot by a Brazilian film crew of Iruan's life in a small fishing town in southern Taiwan.
Paulo A. P. Pinto, director of the Brazil Business Center in Taiwan, said he has heard many expressions of concern from people in Brazil calling for Iruan's return since the boy's father took him back to Taiwan in mid-March. "The boy was born in Brazil and is a Brazilian national. He must be returned to his Brazilian relatives," Pinto said.
To highlight the seriousness of the matter, KMT Legislator Ting Shou-chung (
Iruan, born in Porto Alegre, Brazil, became an orphan when his Taiwanese father, Wu Teng-shu (吳登樹), died of an unknown disease in late March. His mother Marisa Ergui Tavares, a Brazilian woman, died in 1998. Since then, Iruan had been under the care of his grandmother, Rosa Leocia Ergui.
On March 15, Iruan's father, the captain of a fishing vessel, returned to Taiwan with Iruan, intending to place the boy under the care of his Taiwanese relatives.
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