Social worker questioned over abuse, death of boy in foster care

Taipei, March 12 (CNA) Taipei City prosecutors on Tuesday searched the offices of a child welfare foundation and summoned one of its employees for questioning in the case of a 1-year-old boy who died after allegedly being abused by his foster caregiver.

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office said it had conducted searches at the Child Welfare League Foundation's (CWLF) offices, as well as the workplace and home of the CWLF social worker who handled the boy's case.

The 29-year-old female social worker, surnamed Chen (陳), was also taken in for questioning on suspicion of forgery and negligence leading to death, it said.

In the case in question, the CWLF arranged last September to have the 1-year-old New Taipei boy placed in the care of a licensed nanny in Taipei after his mother was sent to prison.

The foundation said its social workers conducted monthly check-ins on the boy in September, October and November.

In December, social workers postponed their planned visit after the foster caregiver said another child she was caring for was ill, the foundation noted, adding that it received news of the boy's death at the end of that month.

The foundation has not said how it learned of the child's death, but added that upon receiving the news, its employees "immediately rushed to the hospital and notified [the child's] family."

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office has said that after learning of the case in January, it summoned the boy's foster caregiver, surnamed Liu (劉), for questioning, and later received permission to have her detained on suspicion of child abuse leading to death, causing injuries leading to death, and violations of child welfare laws.

As its investigation proceeded, Liu's younger sister was also summoned for questioning and detained in February, it said.

Both have yet to be charged.

The latest developments in the case come after a friend of the boy's family said that according to the autopsy conducted on the 1-year-old, he suffered long-term physical abuse in foster care, which could have been prevented if his case worker had done her job properly.

According to the friend, surnamed Lin (林), the CWLF would only correspond with the boy's paternal grandmother, and many of the photos sent by the social worker did not appear to have been taken during check-ins, raising questions as to whether the case reports they submitted were authentic.

Responding to the allegations at a press conference on Tuesday, CWLF chief executive Pai Li-fang (白麗芳) said she was "confident" none of the foundation's social workers would falsify any of their work reports.

Pai also claimed that screenshots of the social worker's correspondence with the boy's grandmother posted by Lin were only "fragments," and that the full correspondence, along with other documents relevant to the case, had been turned over to prosecutors.

As the social worker handling the case has already given testimony to prosecutors, "we hope people won't pin all the responsibility on one person. The CWLF as a whole will bear full responsibility for any future judicial outcome," she said.