Taiwan nanny sisters accused of torturing baby to death with beatings, sleep restraints, food deprivation in 3-month ordeal
- Officially-sanctioned nannies in their 50s are well-known to social workers
- Shocking case stuns island’s social media, brings call for death penalty
The horrific alleged torture-killing of a toddler by two officially-sanctioned nannies in Taiwan has caused widespread shock on the island’s social media.
A one-year-old boy, nicknamed Kaikai, allegedly suffered more than three months of despicable treatment at the hands of two sisters who had been given responsibility for his welfare by the Taiwan Child Welfare League Foundation.
The pair have been accused of feeding the baby boy kitchen scraps and burnt food, beating him up, and tying his hands and feet all night while he slept.
Kaikai died in December 2023 as a result of poor wound healing and blood circulation, caused by long-term domestic violence, according to the Taiwan news outlet Storm Media.
His nannies, two sisters in their 50s, surnamed Liu, are also accused of lying about the cause of the boy’s death and injuries to the medical staff and social workers. They have been detained by the authorities.
The abuse left Kaikai with a sunken skull, broken bones in his hips and legs, and only eight teeth and fingers without nails.
The incident has shocked Taiwan’s social media, with many questioning the safety of its child foster care system.
Kaikai was introduced to the foundation by the New Taipei City government after his family relinquished their custody of him, because his mother was in jail and his father had disappeared.
The foundation sent him to a foster home with the two nannies to be looked after while waiting for adoption, paying them NT$30,000 (US$950) a month.
Social workers reportedly visited the nannies’ place once a month between September and November last year, but did not notice anything wrong with the boy.
Kaikai’s birth family has accused the social workers of negligence, and even faking home-visit photos.
The foundation’s chief executive officer, Bai Li-fang, said the social workers did carry out home visits and noticed the toddler had lost four teeth in November last year.
However, they thought the missing teeth had been caused by difficulties the boy was having in adjusting to a new environment, and urged the nannies to take him to hospital immediately.
Bai said it was the second time the foundation had worked with the Liu sisters, and they tended to believe what they said. He added that the foundation had since blacklisted them and enhanced social worker training.
Child abuse has been a serious social problem in Taiwan.
Latest figures from the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2018 revealed 31.87 per cent of children under six having suffered abuse.
In Taiwan, doctors have the responsibility to report child abuse cases to the police, but subsequent child protection work relies heavily on the efforts of individual social workers.
On March 12, Taiwan Legislative Yuan member, Sean Liao Wei-hsiang, proposed a revision to the criminal law to aggravate the penalty for killing minors under 12 to a minimum of life imprisonment and a maximum death penalty.
The current law only punishes child abusers with a minimum 12 years jail and a maximum of life imprisonment for killing children under 18 years old.
