About 100 children are abandoned in the nation each year, with the most common reason being the parents not having the means to raise them, the Child Welfare League Foundation said.
The foundation cited media reports last month of a newborn abandoned at a hospital right after birth, a baby boy found in a shoe box by a road and the body of a dead infant found in a kitchen rubbish bin.
It said last year it received 458 telephone calls from people asking about whether they could give their children up for adoption, which it said meant an average of 1.3 children were at risk of being abandoned each day.
Among reasons for abandoning children, the foundation said it found that financial difficulty (97.9 percent) is the most common reason, followed by lack of support from family members (75.3 percent) and the child being born out of wedlock (55.2 percent).
Foundation director Pai Li-fang (白麗芳) said the reasons for giving up children might be complicated, such as an unmarried couple with insufficient economic means to take care of their children, or teenage parents wanting to give up their child.
Abandoned children are temporarily placed with a foster family or in a licensed babysitter’s home before they are given to a new family, she said, adding that some children might need medical treatment or therapy.
The foundation said it has assisted adoption cases for more than 25 years and helped more than 700 children find a new home, but added that it takes an average of 272 days for a child to find a new home, and it is usually more difficult to find a new home for older children.
The foundation called on the public to make donations to help the children waiting to be adopted, or join its child sponsorship program by donating NT$600 each month to help cover the temporary costs of caring for children and helping them find a new home.
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