The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) yesterday said that it has over the past year helped naturalize 17 undocumented stateless children, many of whom are the children of illegal immigrants.
The government has for a long time had measures in place to help children who are not registered in national household registration databases, but many illegal immigrants do not register their children for fear of incurring penalties or risking deportation, the ministry said.
Without citizenship, those children are denied access to healthcare, social welfare and opportunities to receive education.
The ministry on Jan. 9 last year launched a program to help stateless children and teenagers born in Taiwan obtain Republic of China (ROC) citizenship.
For children who have a foreign mother and an unknown father, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Immigration Agency first try to contact the child’s mother to find out whether the child has citizenship in the mother’s home nation, the MOI said.
If the child’s mother does not respond within three months, or if the child is proven to be stateless, the government would help the child find a home and apply for naturalization, it said.
Since the program was launched, a total of 17 children have been confirmed as stateless, it added.
A boy in Taichung with an unknown father has been naturalized through the program, after a household registration office in the city applied for his naturalization on behalf of his Vietnamese mother, the MOI said.
The boy’s mother had refused to apply for Vietnamese or ROC citizenship for him, because she had married into another family, it said.
Another child who has been naturalized is a four-year-old girl in Keelung, the MOI said.
The girl’s mother was an illegal immigrant from Vietnam who had not registered the girl for fear of deportation, it said.
Staff at a local hospital reported the case to a household registration office when the girl was taken for medical treatment, the MOI said, adding that the office eventually convinced the mother to apply for the child’s registration and naturalization.
Members of the public should first seek help at local household registration offices when they have problems related to citizenship, it said.
The MOI said that it would review cases that involve more complex problems, or they would be discussed at interministerial meetings to ensure that children’s rights are protected.
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