Change in Adoption Policy in Korea

Can Korea shed image of orphan exporter?

Government’s tougher regulations expected to bring drastic change to adoptions By Lee Hyo-sik South Korea has a notorious reputation of an “orphan exporter” over the years as thousands of abandoned children here have been adopted by foreigners, mostly Americans and Europeans. In a bid to polish its tarnished status abroad and prevent possible child abuse, the Korean government has been encouraging domestic adoptions by providing foster parents with financial subsidies and other incentives. Since 2007, the number of domestic adoptions has exceeded that of overseas ones — but only as the government made regulations for the latter tougher. Experts say the country still has a long way to go until all of its abandoned children find a new family and receive adequate childcare, stressing that kinship-conscious Koreans should be more open to raising the children of others. They also say the recent government move to oblige those seeking to adopt Korean kids to obtain prior approval from courts will not dampen domestic adoption, noting the measure only targets ones administered between individuals under the civil law, which could expose adopted children to potential abuse. They stress adoptions through state-certified agencies are safe and will continue to increase. According to the Korea Central Adoption Resources (KCAR), affiliated with the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the number of orphans adopted at home came to 1,388 in 2007, exceeding 1,264 cases of overseas adoption for the first time. In 2009, a total of 1,314 kids were adopted by Koreans, compared to 1,125 by foreigners. These numbers reflect children adopted at home and overseas only through 22 state-certified adoption agencies. In reality, hundreds of children are adopted through deals made by birthparents and foster parents each year under the civil law, with many more illegally sent abroad. “It seemed almost impossible in the past to see more Korean kids adopted at home than overseas. But in 2007, the number of domestic adoption surpassed that of overseas adoption for the first time in the nation’s history. If the current trend continues, local adoptions will outpace those by foreigners by a larger margin in the future,” KCAR Chairman Yi Bae-keun told The Korea Times. He attributed a rise in the number of domestic adoptions to the expanded state financial incentives, including the provision of a 100,000 won allowance per adopted child, and a growing number of infertile parents. Yi then stressed the importance of local adoptions to removing Korea’s image as an orphan exporter. Construction of database “But still a large number of children find a new home in foreign countries. Many of them are physically and mentally-handicapped children because it is hard to find foster parents for them in Korea. Besides, many Koreans are still reluctant to raise children of others, due to Confucian values regarding blood ties,” the chairman said. When asked about whether the recent government move to strengthen the screening of foster parents will negatively affect adoption, Yi said it will not dampen domestic adoptions through official channels because they are in accordance with a Special Act on Adoption. “But it will likely bring about a drastic change to adoptions carried out among individuals. Under the civil law, birthparents can hand over custody of their children to other adults. But many such cases ended up exposing adopted kids to abuse. I think the government seeks to rein in such cases.” In September, the Ministry of Justice unveiled a plan to revise the civil law concerning the adoption and other related matters. It plans to finalize the revision within the first half of 2011 and submit it to the National Assembly for approval. Among others, a mandatory screening system will be introduced to check whether individuals looking to foster children are fit to do so or not. Those seeking to adopt children will be required to gain prior approval from the court. Currently, adults seeking to adopt children here only need to obtain a written approval from either the biological parents or grandparents. Children growing up in orphanages can be adopted without consent. This has made adopted kids vulnerable to potential physical and psychological abuse. Yi projected that the number of domestic adoptions will continue to increase in the future, while the number of children sent to foreign countries will show a downward curve. “With low birthrates and other social changes in Korea, adoptions will be more popular among Koreans.” The chairman said KCAR will play a greater role in bolostering domestic adoptions by carrying out a range of promotion campaigns and changing Koreans’ perception toward adopting somebody else’s children and raising them as their own. “We will also try to build up a comprehensive database containing information on children adopted by foreigners and their birthparents. A total of 160,000 Koreans have been adopted and raised by foreign foster families over the past 50 years. A large number of children born here and raised by foreigners are coming back to find their birthparents. We would like to be a great help to them in finding their biological roots,” Yi said.

leehs@koreatimes.co.kr

Group Resists Korean Stigma for Unwed Mothers

Group Resists Korean Stigma for Unwed Mothers

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — Four years ago, when she found that she was pregnant by her former boyfriend, Choi Hyong-sook considered abortion. But after she saw the little blip of her baby’s heartbeat on ultrasound images, she could not go through with it.

As her pregnancy advanced, she confided in her elder brother. His reaction would sound familiar to unwed mothers in South Korea. She said he tried to drag her to an abortion clinic. Later, she said, he pressed her to give the child up for adoption.

“My brother said: ‘How can you be so selfish? You can’t do this to our parents,’ ” said Ms. Choi, 37, a hairdresser in Seoul. “But when the adoption agency took my baby away, I felt as if I had thrown him into the trash. It felt as if the earth had stopped turning. I persuaded them to let me reclaim my baby after five days.”

Now, Ms. Choi and other women in her situation are trying to set up the country’s first unwed mothers association to defend their right to raise their own children. It is a small but unusual first step in a society that ostracizes unmarried mothers to such an extent that Koreans often describe things as outrageous by comparing them to “an unmarried woman seeking an excuse to give birth.”

The fledgling group of women — only 40 are involved so far — is striking at one of the great ironies of South Korea. The government and commentators fret over the country’s birthrate, one of the world’s lowest, and deplore South Korea’s international reputation as a baby exporter for foreign adoptions.

Yet each year, social pressure drives thousands of unmarried women to choose between abortion, which is illegal but rampant, and adoption, which is considered socially shameful but is encouraged by the government. The few women who decide to raise a child alone risk a life of poverty and disgrace.

Nearly 90 percent of the 1,250 South Korean children adopted abroad last year, most of them by American couples, were born to unmarried women, according to the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs.

In their campaign, Ms. Choi and the other women have attracted unusual allies. Korean-born adoptees and their foreign families have been returning here in recent years to speak out for the women, who face the same difficulties in today’s South Korea as the adoptees’ birth mothers did decades ago.

One such supporter, Richard Boas, an ophthalmologist from Connecticut who adopted a Korean girl in 1988, said he was helping other Americans adopt foreign children when he visited a social service agency in South Korea in 2006 and began rethinking his “rescue and savior mentality.” There, he encountered a roomful of pregnant women, all unmarried and around 20 years old.

“I looked around and asked myself why these mothers were all giving up their kids,” Dr. Boas said.

He started the Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network, which lobbies for better welfare services from the state.

“What we see in South Korea today is discrimination against natural mothers and favoring of adoption at the government level,” said Jane Jeong Trenka, 37, a Korean-born adoptee who grew up in Minnesota and now leads Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea, one of two groups organized by Korean adoptees who have returned to their homeland to advocate for the rights of adoptees and unwed mothers. “Culture is not an excuse to abuse human rights.”

In 2007, 7,774 babies were born out of wedlock in South Korea, 1.6 percent of all births. (In the United States, nearly 40 percent of babies born in 2007 had unmarried mothers, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.) Nearly 96 percent of unwed pregnant women in South Korea choose abortion, according to the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs.

Of unmarried women who give birth, about 70 percent are believed to give up their babies for adoption, according to a government-financed survey. In the United States, the figure is 1 percent, the Health and Human Services Department reports.

For years, the South Korean government has worked to reduce overseas adoptions, which peaked at 8,837 in 1985. To increase adoptions at home, it provides subsidies and extra health care benefits for families that adopt, and it designated May 11 as Adoption Day.

It also spends billions of dollars a year to try to reverse the declining birthrate, subsidizing fertility treatments for married couples, for example.

“But we don’t see a campaign for unmarried mothers to raise our own children,” said Lee Mee-kyong, a 33-year-old unwed mother. “Once you become an unwed mom, you’re branded as immoral and a failure. People treat you as if you had committed a crime. You fall to the bottom rung of society.” > read more <