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`Baby buyers' allowed to adopt

Government agencies are seeking to let families that illegally bought children from a children trafficker adopt them.

The Shilin District Prosecutors' Office earlier this month said that Wang Jing-ming (王精明), the owner of a clinic in Taipei, was suspected of selling more than 150 babies and children nationwide over 10 years.

Prosecutors asked the Shilin District Court to sentence Wang to 12 years in jail.

During the investigation, the identities of the babies and children sold by Wang, as well as the families involved, were uncovered.

Prosecutors decided not to indict the parents as they had shown remorse for buying the children illegally.

Shilin District Prosecutors' Office spokesman Miao Zhuo-ran (繆卓然) told reporters yesterday that prosecutors and government agencies were looking for ways to help the families adopt the children as soon as possible.

Miao said the parents involved in the scandal wanted to raise families but had had difficulty adopting, which lead them to buy children from Wang.

Social workers from the Ministry of Interior's Children Bureau established that the families had treated the children well, Miao added.

Prosecutors said that household regulations stipulate that the status of a child involved in a lawsuit should be resolved once the lawsuit has been concluded. The Children Bureau, however, chose instead to help the families.

Prosecutors said that the bureau had filed a letter to the Ministry of Justice requiring it to demonstrate the legality of the decision not to indict the parents involved in the case.

In response, the ministry said that the decision not to indict constituted the conclusion of the lawsuit, meaning that the families could then apply with the court for adoption.

The Children Bureau did not request that the families hand over the children after the scandal was exposed, as it considered that children had lived long enough with the families to consider their adoptive parents as their biological ones, the prosecutors added.

Families wanting to adopt the children must apply with the district court to obtain permission, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said parents who did not want to raise their children had sold them to Wang for little money.

Male infants sold for approximately NT$350,000 (US$10,600) while girls were sold for approximately NT$280,000.

Investigators estimated that Wang made more than NT$10 million from the sales.
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