Yunlin County prosecutors this week completed their probe into the adoption of 17 Vietnamese children by families in central Taiwan, saying the suspects were not engaged in human trafficking and charging them only with document forgery.
“We found that all of the 17 Vietnamese children were relatives of the Vietnamese women who had acquired [Taiwanese] citizenship by marriage,” Yunlin District Prosecutors’ Office chief prosecutor Huang Yi-hua (黃怡華) said on Wednesday.
These are not cases of child smuggling or international human trafficking, Huang added.
“Evidence indicated that the US$3,000 to US$7,000 paid by each of the Vietnamese families was for obtaining forged birth certificates and processing the documents in Vietnam, and was not payment related to human trafficking activities,” she said.
“Also, it cannot be established that the Vietnamese children who came to Taiwan were brought here solely for the purpose of working, or that they were paid wages that were not commensurate with the nature of their work,” she said.
Twenty-two suspects were charged with document forgery, 14 of whom are former Vietnamese citizens who came to Taiwan through marriage.
Debate over illegal adoption was sparked by start of the investigation started last year, when foreign affairs officials reported receipt of counterfeit documents from a couple applying for a Taiwanese passport and birth certificate for a child who was born in Vietnam.
After investigators raided the residences of the adoptive families, the National Immigration Agency (NIA) released a statement claiming to have cracked an international human trafficking ring, which was reported by most media outlets.
Further investigation revealed that the families adopted children from Vietnam aged between five and 13 who were helping out on their farms and tea plantations.
Some of the children were found to be attending local schools.
At the time, immigrant advocacy group Taiwan International Family Association accused the agency of jumping to conclusions by announcing it was a child smuggling ring involving forced child labor.
The group said it was adoption by families who were certain the kids would be taken care of.
The prosecutors’ conclusion concurred with the statements by the group, saying: “The purpose [of the adoptions] was for the Vietnamese children to live in better economic conditions, which drove the families to produce forged birth certificates to enable adoption by relatives [in Taiwan].”
The indictment for document forgery and dropping of charges for human trafficking was seen as a rebuke of the NIA officials’ handling of the matter.
“We urge the NIA and foreign affairs officials to be more prudent in their scrutiny of documents when handling applications by foreign nationals entering our country,” the prosecutors’ statement said.
Some of the children involved in the illegal adoption scheme have since obtained citizenship, but prosecutors said that they might be repatriated back to Vietnam, depending on the outcome of the trial.
They will be permitted to live with their adopted families for the time being, the prosecutors said.
Tropical Storm Nari is not a threat to Taiwan, based on its positioning and trajectory, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Nari has strengthened from a tropical depression that was positioned south of Japan, it said. The eye of the storm is about 2,100km east of Taipei, with a north-northeast trajectory moving toward the eastern seaboard of Japan, CWA data showed. Based on its current path, the storm would not affect Taiwan, the agency said.
The Taipei Department of Health’s latest inspection of fresh fruit and vegetables sold in local markets revealed a 25 percent failure rate, with most contraventions involving excessive pesticide residues, while two durians were also found to contain heavy metal cadmium at levels exceeding safety limits. Health Food and Drug Division Director Lin Kuan-chen (林冠蓁) yesterday said the agency routinely conducts inspections of fresh produce sold at traditional markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets, retail outlets and restaurants, testing for pesticide residues and other harmful substances. In its most recent inspection, conducted in May, the department randomly collected 52 samples from various locations, with testing showing
Taipei and other northern cities are to host air-raid drills from 1:30pm to 2pm tomorrow as part of urban resilience drills held alongside the Han Kuang exercises, Taiwan’s largest annual military exercises. Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung, Taoyuan, Yilan County, Hsinchu City and Hsinchu County are to hold the annual Wanan air defense exercise tomorrow, following similar drills held in central and southern Taiwan yesterday and today respectively. The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) and Maokong Gondola are to run as usual, although stations and passenger parking lots would have an “entry only, no exit” policy once air raid sirens sound, Taipei
Taiwan is bracing for a political shake-up as a majority of directly elected lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) face the prospect of early removal from office in an unprecedented wave of recall votes slated for July 26 and Aug. 23. The outcome of the public votes targeting 26 KMT lawmakers in the next two months — and potentially five more at later dates — could upend the power structure in the legislature, where the KMT and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) currently hold a combined majority. After denying direct involvement in the recall campaigns for months, the
RSS