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TAIPEI: Taiwan's government has proposed changing the law to release adult children of abusive parents from the legal obligation to support them in their dotage, the government said on Friday.
The country's Civil Law currently requires Taiwanese citizens to support their parents financially, based on their means to do so.
But under the new rules, children of abusive parents would have to pay only a reduced amount, or nothing at all, depending on how badly they were treated.
The change, already approved by the Cabinet, marks a dramatic break with Confucian tradition, which demands children defer to their parents under all circumstances.
"In traditional thinking, parents are always right, but the obligation to support them is really a relative concept," an official with the justice ministry told AFP.
"It's unacceptable to force adult children to support parents who abused them when they were small," he said.
It was unclear how children would go about proving abuse that lay years or even decades in the past.
The legal amendment, which still requires parliamentary approval, follows a series of reports about abusive parents who sued their grown-up children for financial support.
- AFP/so
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