A stateless child abandoned by an Indonesian migrant worker and an unknown man has been adopted in Scandinavia, the Hsinchu Social Affairs Department said.
Hsinchu Commissioner of Social Affairs Chen Hsueh-hui (陳雪慧) said on Thursday that the department had received a letter from the adoptive family, saying the now three-year-old girl, nicknamed Siao Yuan, has settled in to her new home.
The girl was abandoned at a hospital shortly after she was born, likely because the migrant worker feared immigration authorities, Chen said.
Authorities were unable to identify Siao Yuan’s father, which meant she was classified as stateless, as Taiwan’s naturalization laws are based on the jus sanguinis principle, which confers citizenship based on parentage, not place of birth, Chen said.
Hsinchu Mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) said he will write to Siao Yuan’s adoptive parents on behalf of the city thanking them for supporting the girl and giving her a loving home.
Siao Yuan and her adoptive parents have been invited to visit Hsinchu when it is convenient for them, he added.
Chen said the girl was temporarily placed in an orphanage while the department spent a year searching for her mother.
When efforts failed, Lin consulted the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and applied to be her legal guardian, Chen said.
After a court granted the application in March last year, Lin made arrangements for the child to be adopted with assistance from Taiwan’s Christian Salvation Service, who found the couple who adopted Siao Yuan in Scandinavia in October last year, Chen said.
The adoptive parents have obtained citizenship for Siao Yuan in Scandinavia and at Christmas last year they traveled to Taiwan for the adoption hearing, Chen said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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