Starting this month people giving up their children for adoption and those seeking to adopt will no longer be able to do so privately, as a law stipulating that all adoptions will have to go through authorized institutions — excluding those conducted between relatives — comes into force.
“Revisions to the Children and Juveniles Welfare Act (兒童及少年福利法) stipulating that child adoption should go through government-authorized institutions were passed at the end of November last year and have taken effect from the end of May,” Child Welfare Bureau director-general Chang Hsiu-yuan (張秀鴛) said.
“With the new measures in place, we hope to better regulate child adoption, preventing problems such as child selling and adoptive families ‘returning’ children to their original families,” she added.
She said that on average, courts approve between 3,000 and 4,000 child adoptions a year, of which “about half are adoptions between relatives and the other 50 percent are non-relative adoptions, mostly done privately.”
Out of the private adoptions, between 30 and 40 percent end with adoptive families regretting their decision and terminating the adoption.
“Many people adopt children simply because they do not have kids and want to pass on the family lineage. As they are largely ill-prepared, they regret their decision once they find the kid is not behaving as they would have expected,” Chang said. “This hurts the children involved.”
Even worse, there have been cases where parents have sold their children, she said.
Local media outlets have reported stories detailing the sale of infants for between NT$300,000 (US$10,020) and NT$350,000.
The most shocking case occurred in 2006 when a Taipei doctor was involved in 50 cases of infant trading and issued forged birth certificates falsely listing his “customers” as the biological parents of 101 infants.
“When adoptions are done through authorized institutions, such problems can be better prevented,” Chang said. “In addition, parents who want to adopt children would be required to attend 30 hours of lessons on relevant laws, welfare resources, child-raising and how to tell their adopted children about the adoption.”
“The authorized institutions are also required to track adoptions for three years to provide assistance on any problems that may occur and will regularly host reunions for adoptive families to discuss issues that they face in common together,” she said.
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all