Taiwan arrests Vietnamese woman for abandoning newborn baby girl

Surveillance camera footage captured the 20-year-old woman leaving the baby near a construction site in New Taipei City, police said.

Based on the camera footage, police arrested the woman, identified only by her surname Nguyen, at the dormitory of an electronics company in Zhonghe District Wednesday morning, the Taiwan News reported.

The arrest was made after police received a call from a passerby, reporting that there was a baby in a cardboard box on the sidewalk.

Police rushed to the scene and found a newborn baby girl whose body temperature was slightly low, as she was only wrapped in a thin layer of clothing.

Nguyen confessed to the police that she gave birth to the infant in the dorm on Tuesday and decided to abandon the baby as she could not afford to raise her child.

She is now in custody and faces charges of Child Abandonment, police said.

The baby girl is in stable condition and being cared for by social workers, they added.

Since 2015, when Taiwan lifted a 10-year ban on certain categories of Vietnamese workers, thousands have sought jobs in the territory.

In 2018, 65,000 Vietnamese workers were sent to Taiwan, accounting for nearly half of Vietnam's overseas workforce last year.