7-year-old abandoned in Thai village to be adopted upon return

The boy, known as “Little Ma,” will first meet with his grandfather and his mother, county officials said.

After that, county officials will arrange an adoptive family for the 7-year-old boy, who reportedly can only speak Thai and a local tribal language. He will learn both his mother tongue and Mandarin Chinese, they said. The government will later assess whether to send the boy to an elementary school for proper education, they added.

The county government decided to have “Little Ma” learn his native tongue with an adoptive family as the whereabouts of his father is unknown, his mother is mentally unstable and his grandfather has financial difficulties, said Hsin Chin-hsiang, head of the county's social welfare department.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that same day that it will be responsible for all arrangements prior to the return of the boy, who has overstayed his Thai visa. The Taitung county government will take over once the boy comes back.

The ministry said a week earlier that officials had gone to a village in Thailand's Chiang Rai Province to help repatriate the boy, who has been living there for two years without an identity.

The ministry learned about the child through a letter sent by a Thai woman last October. According to the ministry, the boy's mother took him to Thailand to reunite with her Thai boyfriend in March 2010. She later returned to Taiwan after her visa expired without the boy, who ended up being taken care of by the villagers.

The boy's mother was found to have mental issues after returning to her tribe in Taitung and thereafter moved to Hsinchu, northern Taiwan, to stay with her mother. The boy's grandfather and his tribespeople were hoping that he could return to Taitung.

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