Help For Taiwan’s Foster Daughters

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31543, 4 December 1967, Page 2

Help For Taiwan’s Foster Daughters

TAIPEI.

Steps are being taken by the Taiwan Government to protect the island-country’s estimated 220,000 foster daughters from illtreatment.

These unfortunate girls, mostly adopted when babies, are, according to law-enforce-ment afcehcles. in many cases treated Tike slaves by their foster parents, and often halfstarved and savagely beaten. Worse than.that, poor families in sfiialt tillages sometimes sill their foster daughters for sums of less than $lOO. Most of them end up in brdthels.-. Thq foster daughter system has existed . froqi earliest times on Taiwan; where, because of the traditional emphasis on the male succession, even wealthy families often give daughters away- for adop-

Among poorer families, daughters are sometimes exchanged. The reason for is r economic; foster sir Is ing- without wages cheapest form of lai girts are frequently

are the ibour.ilhe ill-treated

and an exchange saves parents from exploiting their own daughters. One of the major steps being taken by the Taiwan Government to afford better protection to foster daughters by administrative' and legislative means is the establishment of 0 Foster Daughter Foundation of $1,250,000. The foundation will provide accommodation and Vocational training for ill-treated foster daughters, . The Department of Civil Affairs, Police, and Information will hold regular meetings to discuss matters concerning the- welfare of foster daughters. The programme will start With a ' general survey of foster daughters in the country and the conditions under which they live. Awards will be given to those families treating foster daughters as if they were their own.