3rd Annual Single Mother’s Awareness Day Raised Awareness

Since 1953, nearly 200,000 Korean children have been adopted overseas, with 89 percent of the children born to unwed mothers. More than 17,000 adoptions occurred in the past decade. South Korea’s birth rate remains among the world’s lowest, yet the government continues to promote adoption as a viable alternative for keeping families intact.

This past May marked the third anniversary of Single Mother’s Day, an international conference established by the group TRACK (Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea). Single Mother’s Day serves to promote domestic adoptions after May 11 was designated as Adoption Day.

TRACK, organized by adoptees who have returned to Korea in search of their birth families, has mobilized those affected by unethical adoption practices and created a grassroots movement to keep the Korean government accountable. Since 2009, TRACK has successfully promoted public awareness and lobbied for transparency in adoption cases.

Korea’s current voluntary birth reporting system allows for the circumvention of legal documentation. Birth certificates do not serve as a legal document when presented at the hospital and can be given without a child’s name present.

So a birth is not recognized until it is officially recorded at the local administrative office. This allows predatory agencies to profit from adoptions and enables adopters to sign on as the child’s biological parents, violating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 7, paragraph 1 states: “The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.”

Organizations like TRACK, Dandelions and KUMFA continue to petition the government to address birth registration policy reform and child support responsibility. Although awareness is growing, resources for unwed mothers remain limited, leaving them ostracized in Korean society.

During a KoROOT event in 2007, Park Eun-Jeong, a single mother in Seoul, described the abuse her daughter incurred at a daycare center. Mothers at the daycare center repeatedly locked the little girl in a room by herself because they did not want Park’s daughter interacting with their children.

“It seems that no matter how much initiative I take in order to create a better life for us, the problem of being able to find [a] decent job is insurmountable,” Kong Mi-Kyung explained, a single mother with the Seoul Single Parents’ Association.

Dandelions Group for Families of Origin supports family members, who have been affected by intercountry adoption practices, by aiding to reunite adoptees with their biological parents.

“Dandelions wants to make a society where we can raise our own children,” Noh Geum-Ju, Dandelions co-chair stated. “As parents, we want to let the society that is still sending children for adoption without any policy measures know how hurtful that is, and we want to lead the way in settling the adoption culture.”

For more information about these organizations and their upcoming events, visit their resources:

The TRACK Online Library at www.adoptionjustice.com/library/

Korea Unwed Mothers Families’ Association Facebook Group at:

www.facebook.com/groups/kumfa/