Taipei's city government is under fire for taking eight months to move a 10-year-old girl out of a home where she was reportedly sexually abused — bad for the city's child-protection record, and a test of how Taiwan handles at-risk kids.

• Councilors said the girl was abused repeatedly at home while her mother worked in the sex trade, and no placement happened in 240 days since the December report.
• The girl told officials in June she did not want to keep living there, and harmed herself in mid-August.
• The city's social welfare bureau said its risk assessment did not meet the legal bar for court-ordered removal and that the girl herself refused placement.
• After the public pressure, the bureau reversed course and started formal court-protection placement, saying the girl has already been moved while the case proceeds.
• The family had been in the welfare system for 15 years, which councilors call proof that the tracking and risk-assessment system has broken down.

Outlook: Prosecutors now hold the criminal case, and the city faces pressure to overhaul how it decides when to pull a child from home.