- Headline: "Give These Helpless Orphans Parents!"
- Source: Chosun Ilbo
- Date of Publication: September 30, 1976
- Summary:
A nationwide movement is underway to help and care for the countless orphans left without families. Today, it is estimated that more than 50,000 children are living in shelters and welfare facilities across the country. During the Korean War, countless children became war orphans after losing their parents to the conflict. Now, however, social issues such as unwed motherhood, poverty, and family discord are the primary reasons for the growing number of orphaned children. These children need parents to raise them. In pursuit of this noble humanitarian goal, the government has worked to promote both domestic and international adoption. Yet, progress has been disappointing. Domestic adoptions have declined by 30% compared to 1974 despite government efforts to encourage more families to adopt. To balance the adoption ratio between domestic and international cases, the government introduced a quota system, shifting the ratio from 1:9 in 1974, to 2:8 in 1975, and to 3:7 in 1976. However, the results remain unsatisfactory. If domestic adoption is to increase, adoption procedures must be simplified, and legal reforms must ensure that adoptive parents are granted full parental rights over their adopted children. As the nation's economy continues to grow and incomes rise, it is unreasonable that domestic adoptions remain stagnant. Raising another’s child is no easy task, but it is through love and a sense of human duty that we must find the will to do what is right. One can observe a societal tendency to equate children of unwed mothers and impoverished families with orphans, framing adoption into legally married, so-called "normal" families as the primary solution to this issue.
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