【Get to know Taiwan】Background and development of birth reporting in Taiwan

Recently, the words of “abandoned child” were seen a lot in some fundraising video or reports. Then I wonder how many “abandoned children” are in Taiwan?

Let’s talk about what “abandoned child” means first. Generally, in Taiwan it means these children’s father and mother are unknown in their records. Therefore, the number of actual “abandoned children” has been decreasing dramatically because of Household Registry Act as well as the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act and pervasiveness of civilian cameras.

On the other hand, the number of children who have no home or support has been increasing because their families fail to meet their needs in all aspects. This part will be discussed later. Today, I am going to introduce the main contributors resulting in decreasing the number of “abandoned children”.

Household Registry System started from the time when Taiwan was Japanese colony. It has been used to record a person’s major events, such as getting married, divorce, birth, death, recognizing paternity, adoption…etc. Of course, it also includes so called migration - “moves in” and “moves out”. With these records, population data can be established. Household registry address is considered and used to be the place where a person resides. However, it is also evidenced that some people do not live in the place where their household registry record is established.

Household Registry Act in Taiwan has been implemented since 1946. In this Act, the regulation related to a newborn’s birth registry states that the parent of a newborn should take birth certificate issued by a physician or midwife to register the birth within 15 days after the delivery of the baby (it was modified to within 30 days in 1997 and 60 days in 2008) at the household registry office where the parent’s household registry record is. There will be fine if failing to do so.  

Because of the movement of promoting women and children’s health and to more accurately oversee the population data, Department of Health designed a reporting system so hospital which delivers the baby or midwife is required to “proactively” report birth or death of a newborn. It was clearly stipulated in Child Welfare Act modified on February 5, 1993 that the person who delivers the baby should report to the household registry office and the health authority the relevant birth information 10 days after the delivery of the baby. On December 28, 1994, Department of Health, Ministry of Interior, announced new modified “Birth Certificate” and “Stillborn Certificate”. The Paper-form Birth Reporting Procedure was implemented starting from the follow March up to now. 

On May 28, 2003, “Child and Youth Welfare Act” was passed after combining “Child Welfare Act” and “Youth Welfare Act”. It was clearly stipulated in the Article 13 of that Act that the identified person will report to the health authority the relevant birth information seven days after the delivery of the baby.

On November 30, 2011, “Child and Youth Welfare Act” was modified and changed to “The Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act”. Its Article 14 extended birth reporting to include stillborn. 

Because of lots of people’s efforts, the number of “abandoned children” has been decreasing. It also eliminates the possibility to forge “Birth Certificate”. Therefore, next time, when you hear the words “abandoned children”, just remember that most of them have a parent and are not abandoned in some sort of wilderness area. Those children are in the care of government or an agency because their parent/s cannot function well enough to meet their developmental needs. In addition, most of these children’s parents ask for assistance rather than abandoning their children.

Reference: 

1. Household Registration Act  http://law.moj.gov.tw/Eng/LawClass/LawContent.aspx?PCODE=D0030006 

2. The Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act http://law.moj.gov.tw/Eng/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?PCode=D0050001 

3. Introduction of birth reporting background http://www.hpa.gov.tw/BHPNet/Web/Healthtopic/TopicArticle.aspx?No=201109200017&parentid=201109200004