▶ The original article, 21C 한국판 주홍글씨 누가 지워줄까, was published in Daehan News in Aug 9, 2009 and translated by Korean Unwed Mothers' Support Network (KUMSN)
People always told her that she laughed a lot and looked confident. She enjoyed being around people. But after she decided to keep her baby and since has been raising the child alone, it is now not so easy to even make eye contact with other people.
As an unwed mother of a 15 month old girl, Ms. Jung's life has changed. In a shaking voice, Ms. Jung told me that "I thought that I was now ready, but I think there is still some fear left in me (to speak in front of people)," and added that "it is important for us to voice ourselves."
Besides Jung, many other unwed mothers, Director of the Korea Unwed Mothers Network Richard Boas, Consultant Ellen Fernari, Cheryl Mitchell (former Deputy secretary at Agency of Human Services in the state of Vermont and research professor at Vermont University), KWAU Co-director Young Mi Park, and KWDI researcher Mi Jung Lee, gathered in one place.
The occasion was the "Better Understanding Support Policies for Unwed Moms" seminar, for the exchange of information on the welfare policy for unwed mothers in the U.S. and Korea as well as their respective situations. At the seminar Director Boas spoke on the topic "Why I support Korean unwed mothers and their children, and why Korea has to support them."
Director Boas, who began supporting Korean adoption activities after adopting his daughter Esther, made a visit to a social welfare center in Daegu in 1998. There he met around twenty young unwed mothers from 18 to 24 years of age, and he also realized that these mothers would soon have to give up their children.
At that time, he realized that 19 years before, his daughter Esther was among one of these children given up for adoption, and that "although for a long time, [he] had worked as an ophthalmologist working with the blind, [he] had only thought of [his] child and [his] wife, and had been blind to those unwed mothers who had to lose their children."
Furthermore, Director Boas said that he "realized that for unwed mothers, to keep their child wasn't an option," as he pointed out the social stigma, alienation from family, and lack of government support as the source of the problem. Ultimately, while Korea is a major economic power and an OECD country, its unwed mothers are left figure things out by themselves.
Boas especially urged that local communities and the government keep a continuing interest in the country's unwed mothers, adding that "the formula for happiness can only be completed when the birth mother is added into the equation along with the adopted child and adoptive family."
"Mothers who have made the brave decision to keep their child deserve to receive help from society, and must be given viable support," Boas said.
Director Boas, who says he will keep working to promote education and discourse on this issue with the belief that the problem of unwed mothers can be made a significant issue and be effectively solved, ended his presentation through the words of human rights activist Rosa Parks: "If you think that it is right, it must be done, without fear."
Reporter Young Mi Baek
#Advocacy #Campaign #Changes #SouthKorea #UnwedMothers #2000s
