Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare Announce Revised Adoption Law UPDATED

“The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced its revised adoption law on March 9, under which adoption will be allowed after seven days have passed since birth.

During those seven days, the mother will receive mandatory counseling on available parenting support.

The plan also requires adoption agencies to spend five month seeking a domestic adoption before looking overseas.

Adoption agencies will also be required to check aspiring adoptive families’ criminal records, particularly for child abuse or sexual violence. Adoptive parents will have to complete mandatory education on parenting before adopting, while city and district offices will no longer be able to grant adoptions with just the relevant documents. Adoption will first be permitted by the family courts.

The ministry plans to complete the legislation procedures to enforce the measures in August.

Officials said the plan is aimed at keeping children with their biological mothers where possible, and to encourage adoption in Korea rather than abroad.

“Our priority in revising the adoption law is guaranteeing a friendly environment for children. Their rights will be respected under the revisions,” said Lee Kyung-eun, a ministry official. ”

Opposition

“However, others called the provision requiring birth mothers to keep babies for seven days after birth cruel.

“It is generally understood that mothers decide whether or not to keep the baby before labor. So, the planned revision will just add to the distress,” a social worker at an organization for single mothers said.

She said poor single mothers stay in the hospital or a maternity center for an average of three days after natural childbirth, before placing their baby for adoption. When their normal life resumes, at least on the surface, they pretend as if the birth never happened.

“Birth mothers will likely feel more of a sense of guilt about adoption, because of the seven-day mandatory deliberation, which may complicate the adoption process. Under the new system, if legislated, we may see a gloomy scenario of mothers just abandoning their babies after birth and disappearing,” she said.

Another social worker at a different organization said that the clause requiring family courts to approve adoption could create a black market for adoption.

In Korea, more than 70 percent of domestic adoptions are kept private and secret to the adopted child.

“Going to the court means that adoption becomes a public matter which will undergo all the legal steps. Then, adoptive parents will find it difficult to keep their adoption private and secret. They would rather look for single moms who are willing to put their babies for adoption out of the court,” she said.

“The court permission system is likely to make adoption public. Considering that the public still prefer keeping adoption secret, the plan is premature and stressful for those involved.”

Some social workers said they had pointed out possible problems to the authorities but their concerns were dismissed.

Government officials, however, stress that their plan to make adoption harder is focused on the child and that mothers should have a greater sense of responsibility.

They also said that many single mothers tend to make the life time decision right after birth without giving any thought to motherhood. [tend to? or were forced to?]

“Rep. Choi Young-hee of the Democratic United Party, who initiated the revision, called for a 30-day deliberation but we have reduced it to a week,” said Kim Mi-kyung, a ministry official.

Other countries have such a deliberation period. It is 24-72 hours in the U.S. and up to six weeks in the U.K.

“We are aware of the criticism. Let’s focus on the babies. Keeping them with their birth mothers is definitely best for newborns,” Kim said.”

Adoption law revision draws fire
[Korea Herald 3/18/12 by Bae Ji-Sook]

Background of this Effort

“South Korea is on the verge of changing its reputation as the world’s leading baby exporter to a world leader in grassroots adoption reform. The first-ever birth mother, unwed mother, and adoptee co-authored bill is moving toward a National Assembly vote with government sponsorship.
Under current South Korean law, prospective adoptive parents don’t need to undergo criminal background checks. Moreover, agencies counsel unwed mothers, whose children comprise almost 90 percent of adoption placements, to sign illegal paperwork consenting to adoption even though their children are still in their wombs. The new bill proposes urgent revisions to change these realities and stipulates a court process for adoption, a cooling off period for child surrender without duress, and the documentation of identities, among other provisions.

“What makes this reform effort distinctive is that [it] is neither the result of a top-down process nor a powerful adoptive parent lobby,” says tammy ko Robinson, coalition member and professor at Hangyang University. “This bill is co-authored and informed by those of us who have been directly affected by this law.” The bill is a coalition effort that includes Adoptee Solidarity Korea (ASK), Korean Unwed Mothers and Families Association (KUMFA), and several other groups.

“[The revision of the special adoption law] is an opportunity for South Korea to fully enter the 21st century as not just an economically developed nation, but as a socially developed one,” says ASK representative Kim Stoker. “It’s time for the government to end its outdated attitude toward international adoption and make concrete steps toward protecting the rights of its children and the mothers who give birth to them.”

The Baby Trade

With the world’s longest and oldest overseas adoption program, South Korea has sent an estimated 220,000 children to 14 receiving countries. Korean adoptees thus comprise the largest global child displacement in history, more than double the Chinese adoptee diaspora.

According to Kevin Ost-Vollmers, former staff of Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota and Children’s Home Society & Family Services, “The number [of overseas adoptions] is declining; however, the fact is that many Americans adopt Korean children. The money received by the Korean agencies is significant.”

Despite promoting domestic adoption since 2005, South Korea remains a top five sending country to the United States accounting for almost 13 percent of all 2010 overseas adoptions. Adoptions from South Korea generate $35 million annually with a single overseas adoption today averaging $15,000. By contrast, the Korean government provided an unwed mother in 2009 with only 50,000 won (about $48) per month to care for her child. The money from one overseas adoption would pay an unwed mother’s family subsidy for 25 years of her child’s life.

Although the total revenue generated from an estimated 220,000 children is unknown, today’s prices suggest $3.3 billion as a rough sketch. A fuller picture would include unreported cash donations to strengthen inter-agency relationships leading to continuous child referrals, as well as the cost savings associated with exporting the children’s and their families’ social welfare needs. South Korea spends only 6.9 percent of its GDP on social welfare – the least among OECD nations. It allocated only 0.09 percent of its 2009 fiscal budget to support its children.

The Human Costs

Current law privileges expediency over mother and child rights and provides meager oversight of adoption providers. The Korean government is sometimes not even involved in adoption, and sales of children have taken place over the Internet.

Need seems to justify speed. Mission to Promote Adoption in Korea argues that there are annually thousands of homeless orphans in desperate need of families, but behind 9 out of 10 adoptions, there are unwed mothers whose families are torn apart. Caught in adoption pipeline, many of these mothers do not want to surrender their children but have little choice.

Hyong-sook Choi, a founding leader of KUMFA and mother of a four-year-old son, describes coercive agency counseling practices: “In the instance of one facility that provides support for unwed mothers’ counseling, for rearing and for raising . . . about 82 percent [of unwed mothers choose family preservation], while only 37 percent of unwed mothers who give birth in facilities run by adoption agencies decide to rear their children.”

South Korea has the world’s lowest birthrate with unwed mothers constituting only 1-1.25 percent of live births. Four out of five unwed mothers are aged 25 and over. Some of the KUMFA mothers are business owners or college graduates. As one mother mentioned to me, “[this cultural stigma] cuts off mothers’ arms and legs.”

It further reduces unwed mothers to wombs creating orphans. “Adoption agencies often say that adoption is ‘giving birth to an abandoned child through one’s heart,’” says Choi. “What kind of mother can send her child easily? Our hearts are broken when we hear that.”

Unwed mothers also tell of not being allowed to see their children because social workers arrive shortly after birth to take them away thus preventing mothers from changing their minds. When mothers attempt to get their children back, they are charged healthcare and foster care expenses— costs for which the agencies receive government subsidies. Mothers oftentimes are unable to pay this child ransom. Some birth mothers have said that agencies require fathers’ signatures in addition to theirs on documents rescinding adoption consent— a stipulation that was not needed for child surrender.

When birth mothers have asked for information about their children, agencies have refused, claiming that doing so violates the adoptive family’s privacy and telling birth mothers to wait until adoptees turn 18. However, there are no laws sealing or regulating adoption files, which are technically agency private property. The agencies could burn the records if they wanted.

Leanne Lieth, an artist and founder of Korean Adoptees for Fair Records Access, explains the challenges impeding adoptee information seeking: “Access to our Korean records is dependent upon whether the adoptee knows that there are duplicate or original records in Korea, that those records may have additional information . . . and that the adoptee has the will and tenacity to investigate across continents and languages with the often uncooperative and hostile Korean international adoption agencies. This process is arbitrary, inconsistent, and can drag out for years.”

In 1995-2005, the Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Family reported that 78,000 adoptees initiated a birth search, but only 2.7 percent reunited.

Birth searching has revealed structural abuses such as falsified “orphan identities” as well as kidnapping by the orphanage. Parents return to claim their children only to discover that the orphanage forwarded them on to the agency. However, South Korean law disallows a third party transfer of parental rights, and before 2008, only a father could add or remove children from a family registry.
Turning a child into a paper orphan violates her/his basic right to identity as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. “Let us acknowledge that each and every human being deserves to know about themselves and that their information should not be held hostage by a private interest,” says Lieth. “This is our human right. It should be our civil right.”

Counting on Now

Over the almost 60 years of South Korea’s adoption history, 220,000 adopted and forgotten children equal 220,000 birth mothers equal 220,000 families separated by deeply-rooted discrimination, not always by choice.

By making the new adoption bill law, South Korea can begin reconciling its painful adoption past by changing its current systematic placement of Korean children through the erasure of their identities and coercion of their mothers. In this way, South Korea can work to set new precedents in adoption justice.

If South Korea seizes this opportunity, it will be due to adoptees, birth mothers, and unwed mothers not giving up on South Korea despite South Korea giving up on them.

“We still have to see, but I’m hopeful that the plenary vote will indicate a collective realization,” says Professor Robinson. “During the next 50 years, why not focus on developing a model for others to emulate in how to protect its children’s rights as citizens with families?”

The future belongs to South Korea to pioneer. May it begin now to count all of its diverse families as equal and beyond price.”
Ending South Korea’s Child Export Shame
[Foreign Policy in Focus 6/23/11 by Jennifer Kwon Dobbs]

REFORM Puzzle Piece
It is important to understand that this is the “first-ever birth mother, unwed mother, and adoptee co-authored bill is moving toward a National Assembly vote with government sponsorship.”

How can anyone say that checking PAPs for criminal records and educating them is bad? It is shocking that this isn’t already the case.

For those that oppose this and claim that a black market may be created, what do you say about coercion to place BEFORE giving birth?

Update: DOS issued an alert about August 2012 Laws on January 25, 2013

See here and pasted below:

“South Korea

January 25, 2013

Notice: Korea Begins Implementing Special Adoption Act

On August 5, 2012, the Republic of Korea (ROK) Special Adoption Act, which governs intercountry adoptions from South Korea, went into effect.  This law prioritizes domestic adoptions and endeavors to reduce the number of South Korean children adopted abroad.  Under the Special Adoption Act, each intercountry adoption requires the approval of the ROK Family Court.  We anticipate other significant changes from previous intercountry adoption procedures and requirements.  The ROK government has not yet given public notice of the details at this time.

The ROK’s Ministry of Health and Welfare recently informed the U.S. Embassy in Seoul that adoptions that were in process but not completed by August 5, 2012 will be processed under the new law.  Adoption agencies in Seoul have confirmed that the files of all children under last year’s quota who had not received Emigration Permits prior to the effective date of the new law are now being sent to the Family Court for approval once Emigration Permits are issued.  Prospective adoptive parents who believe their case may fall under the new law should contact their adoption service provider for more information.  The ROK is accepting new adoption applications; however, prospective adoptive parents should not expect rapid processing of these cases until the ROK’s new procedures are in place.”