- Headline: Is custody not an option for unwed mothers?
- Subheading: [Cover story] Social Welfare agencies are too quick to recommend adoption ... Low-income unwed mothers receive W50,000 per month - lower than adoption subsidy W100,000
- Source: Hankyoreh21
- Date of Publication: May 14, 2009
▶ The original article, 미혼모에게 ‘양육’ 선택권은 없나, was translated by Korean Unwed Mothers' Support Network (KUMSN) "We give you one-month old baby." That's what I heard when I approached an adoption agency for adoption. This agency said that they can offer an unwed mother's baby that has not been registered. Another adoption agency also offered babies one to three months old, all without birth certificates. This is the reality of secret adoption in Korea. Marketing expenditure is larger than care expenditure... In Korea, adoption is 'heart-born love'. Extensive marketing is being done, led by four adoption agencies. According to 2001 Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs research, 28% of expenditure that an adoption agency spends on a domestically adopted child is marketing cost. That is higher than care cost which accounts for 23%. Hence the greatly improved public awareness of domestic adoption. Domestic adoption has now become an alternative to international adoption which has been criticized since the 1980s. Celebrities are working as adoption ambassadors, too. Many parents with good will have opted to adopt children. Since 2007, the government pays adoption commission of 2.2 million won that adoptive parents used to pay to adoption agency. However, domestic adoption does not alleviate any of the problems with international adoption, from the essential fact that adoption separates natural mother from child to the issue of unwed mothers. There's no after-care, and no plans for the cancellation of adoption. Last year, 1,306 children were adopted domestically. Among their custodians, 518 were earning less than the urban monthly average. 1,506 were the children of unwed mothers, and 920 were adopted before they were three months old. Most of them had their birth registered under their adoptive parents because neither birth mother nor adoptive parents wanted to keep the record of adoption. Which is what makes it so difficult for adoptees to find their roots, or for birth mothers to find their children. Whang, 50, adopted a Korean child five years ago, partly because she felt guilt about having sent her own child abroad for adoption 20 years ago. She knew what it feels like not being able to find one's own children who were sent abroad for adoption. Two years after adopting a child, Whang asked the adoption agency to pass on her current address to the child's birth mother so that she could visit her child whenever she wanted. However, the adoption agency strongly disagreed. They said it's best for everyone that birth mother does not know where her child is, for she may want to take the child back. That made Whang feel a bit reluctant. She is now out of touch with the birth mother of her adoptive child. Park, 26, opted for adoption and spent the past year in tears. In March 2008, she became an unwed mother and was supported at an unwed mothers' shelter run by an adoption agency. Her counselor told her that she should agree to adoption and give up custody at their first counseling session. She signed the papers in the morning of the day she gave birth, and her daughter was taken away from her to a temporary care center of the adoption agency as soon as she was born in the afternoon. But Park could not forget about her daughter. Only after three days, she asked the adoption agency to return her baby. But the adoption agency told her that, in order to take her baby back, she should state clearly her relationship with the baby's father and the stance of the parents of both father and mother of the baby, on top of paying for the cost of childbirth and foster care. Baby ended up in the arms of adoptive parents before she was two months old. 4,896 cases of cancellation of adoption by civil law in six years Park, finding it hard to give up, began to look for ways to raise her own baby with the baby's father. She registered her marriage with her partner in last November and searched for the baby. She filed a civil case with the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs and wrote about her story on an on-line adoption community. After Hankyeoreh ran her story in March, the couple managed to have their baby back; the adoptive parents told them to have the baby back. It took less than a day do decide on adoption, but to undo it took nearly a year. However, the story is not over. On paper, the baby is a natural child of her adoptive parents. They have to file a civil law suit to have nullify the register, and Park couple is going ahead with the procedure. The whole process scarred adoptive parents, too. They had to give up a baby for whom they'd spent a year with. Lack of counseling and consideration in the process of adoption scars both natural and adoptive parents. The Supreme Court statistics records 4,896 cases of cancellation of adoption by civil agreement (by declaration) between 2001 and 2006; there were 305 cases of cancelation of adoption by court action. Park said, "my adoption agency only talked about adoption and said little about support to raise my own child. I would have chosen raising my own child had I know that I could get help." There are 41 mother-and-child homes in the country where low-income mothers and their child can take shelter and prepare for independent living. These shelters offer job training and a grant of two million won when mothers leave them. Low-income mothers also receive 50,000 won per month as childcare support; but that is less than W100,00 given to adoptive parents as childcare subsidy. See the sad eyes of mother Experts agree that the society should support unwed mothers to raise their own children rather than sending them away for adoption. Sang-soon Han, the director of AeRanwon, said, "17 out of 25 unwed mothers' homes are run by adoption agencies, and in many cases only those who have opted for adoption are admitted." Hye-young Kim, a research at Korea Womens' Development Institute, said, "there's no reason why unwed mothers raising their own children should receive less in government subsidy than adoptive parents. We must have a comprehensive policy to help unwed mothers raise their own children and be economically and socially independent." Abortion begins from separating a family. The very basic that international conventions call for is to support the child to live with the child's original family in their countries of origin. Richard Boas, an American ophthalmologist, was going to found a foundation for international adoption in the USA until he visited an unwed mothers' home in Korea in 2006. He saw the sad eyes of unwed mothers who had already sent their babies away for adoption or were waiting to do so. He wrapped up his work to support international adoption, and instead created Korean Unwed Mothers Support Network in Korea. Seeing the sad eyes of mothers could be the beginning of solving this complex issue.
#Advocacy #Campaign #Changes #SouthKorea #UnwedMothers #2000s | 
