Taiwan News
Date: 2016-07-21
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

The Legislature has recently passed the first reading of an amendment to the Nationality Act

The photo shows foreign spouses in Taiwan. (This image is unrelated to the story)

aimed at reducing the problems of statelessness and inequality for Chinese and other foreign spouses. Civic groups, however, argued that five articles in the act failed to protect the human rights of new immigrants, making some Chinese and foreign spouses easily subjected to statelessness.

The Secretary General of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights Eeling Chiu indicated that Taiwan’s regulations have created more and more stateless people on the island, which is obviously at odds with two statelessness conventions and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW), and has been criticized by international experts.

Chiu advocates the removal of the requirement of the abdication of the original nationality after acquiring ROC citizenship for foreign spouses, which has been considered helpful for promoting gender equality and flourishing diversity.     [FULL  STORY]