Biracial couple gets raw deal on adoption

[imienazwisko.livejournal.com]

By Kim Da-ye

A “multicultural” couple ― Korean wife and American husband ― living in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, learned the hard way that couples like them are effectively blocked from adopting a baby.

In August 2012, the couple decided to adopt. They soon found they faced an uphill struggle and nearly gave up. Three major adoption agencies they contacted said they had no idea how they could arrange an adoption for a Korean-foreigner couple under the revised Adoption Law.

“We checked with Holt but they told me they didn’t know how they could help,” the wife remembered during a recent interview with The Korea Times. Holt refers to Holt Children’s Services, the country’s largest adoption agency.

The husband and wife decided to wait until things become clearer ― but even now little has happened. In the meantime, they came across a plea posted on the portal site Naver. A 20-year-old girl was asking someone to adopt her one-month-old daughter because she had no money to feed and raise her.

When the couple met their future daughter, they felt compelled to adopt the baby. The wife registered her as her own biological daughter, without knowing it was illegal.

“The only thing we thought was save the baby and fast,” the wife said.

“The parents and baby couldn’t afford to eat. The baby was so skinny that you could count the ribs in her chest.”

She continued, ““The parents didn’t have money to buy diapers so the baby had running sores all over her body.

“We didn’t know we were violating the law; we were just saving a life.”

After a year, however, someone reported to the police that the couple had kidnapped the baby girl. After the wife was questioned, the case was passed onto prosecutors. She thought tough punishment was waiting for them.

The Korea Times asked for a photo but the couple declined in order to protect the privacy of her daughter. The couple is still going through legal procedures to adopt the baby.

Like the couple, other multiracial families find it nearly impossible to have agencies arrange an adoption for them. With the revised law requiring a family court to approve adoptions, prospective parents have to work with agencies to bring their cases to the court.

Adoption agencies do not know how to handle adoptions for interracial families. Not only have they rarely handled such cases, they have not been given clear guidelines from the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

When The Korea Times contacted the ministry and Seoul Family Court, they both gave different answers.

Two articles of the Adoption Law deal with adoptions by foreigners living in Korea. Article 10 deals with qualifications for adoptive parents. It says, “When an adoptive parent is not Korean, he or she needs to qualify under his or her country’s law.” Article 18 is specifically about adoption by foreigners living in Korea, and list conditions they need to meet.

A judge at the Seoul Family Court said that an adoption by a Korean-foreigner couple is covered by Article 18.

An official from the welfare ministry initially said that adoptions by multiracial families should be handled according to the same article. She later confirmed that Korean-foreign couples will be treated nearly the same as Koreans, but will have to hand in additional documents required under Article 10.

However, Holt and other adoption-related agencies that interpret the law at the working level remain confused.

As a result, in reality, it is more difficult for multiracial families living in Korea to adopt Korean children than for foreigners living abroad who fall under clear guidelines.

While no adoption agencies helped the Korean-American couple, they were lucky to have met a prosecutor who understood their situation.

Kim Sung-won, the prosecutor at Uijeongbu District Public Prosecutors’ Office, took on the investigation and realized that the couple has raised the baby healthy and well. The prosecution dropped the case against the couple, and is helping them legally adopt the baby.

The prosecutors’ office, in fact, contacted a couple of major adoption agencies, which only told them that they did not know how to handle such a case.

“The government is proactively encouraging adoptions, but they couldn’t adopt because they were a multiracial family. Because one of the parents was American, adoption agencies told them adoption was impossible,” Kim said.

“I read in the news that a Swedish couple adopted a Korean baby easily. In the case of this Korean-American couple, one parent is Korean and both live in Korea, so I couldn’t understand that adoption agencies were so passive in dealing with it. The couple wouldn’t have done it (adopting from the Internet) if they were helped.”

Kim also contacted the biological father of the baby on his military service who signed documents for the couple’s adoption. When he saw the baby in good shape, he wept and thanked the adoptive parents.

In order to adopt their daughter legally, the couple has hired a lawyer and filed a petition to the court. The process will involve a re-registration of the daughter’s birth.

Having learned how to handle an adoption by themselves, the couple ― both in their early 30s ― now plan to adopt a second child. The wife said that they will go through the same process as that for Koreans and that the husband will have to prepare additional documents from the U.S. Embassy.

“There are many different cases of adoptions as there are many variables in our lives. Adoption agencies shouldn’t just follow set procedures but proactively study different circumstances. The welfare ministry will also have to actively support adoption agencies,” the wife said.

source: koreatimes

Comments

[torontok.livejournal.com]

Why do I get the sneaky feeling that because the wife in this case was Korean instead of the husband that it contributed to their problems?
I've heard some very sketchy things about Holt Adoption Services esp in SK. Apparently they pressured single mothers to give up their kids, accepted babies from people who wernt the parents, refused to disclose files to adoptees etc.
Either way, this is a completely one-sided account so we cant judge the entire case yet

[diet-pork.livejournal.com]

Oh god. Tell me something new.

[wafflesnmilk.livejournal.com]

Who would know about the background of this adoption to report on the couple other than the original mother(or maybe someone related to them) though ? That's so shady .

[rikayla.livejournal.com]

this article makes me so angry. we're all the same people. we're all humans.

[oppameansit.livejournal.com]

i'm glad this one ended happily - the prosecution dropping the charges and pledging to help them adopt the baby legally made me smile

[the-erotomanic.livejournal.com]

It kinda makes sense thatif you are a foreigner, you have to go through a different process. It seems like the initial problem of the couple could have been resolved if someone made an extra effort in understanding how the law works. But it's a happy ending for the baby, so there's that silver lining.

[norringtons.livejournal.com]

Reading stuff like this makes me tear up...

[oniongulru.livejournal.com]

The cause of the problem isnt that the couple is biracial, it's that one of them isn't a Korean citizen. Its normal that this would make it harder to apply the law. Way to twist it around.

Adoption is a complicated process. Of course this is a special case because the baby was in a dangerous situation, but I dont blame the police for taking them under investigation because the couple couldve been psychos for all they know.

[scarletfbl.livejournal.com]

I wanna know who the hell the person was that took it upon themselves to say that couple kidnapped a baby. Do they moonlight as a PI?

[yakuniku-8.livejournal.com]

let's not take one case for the rule. he may have read in an article that a Swedish couple adopted a kid easily but it is known that Korea have been blocking international adoption for 20 years because it doesn't fit with the image of a developped country. I have the feeling that for this kind of matters it all depends on the adminstration...

[odd-fish-stick.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to be an asshole, but I think that If they really cared about the baby they would have helped the couple in other ways instead eagerly of taking a child from a desperate mother's arms. Adoptions in korea are often times very shady and young mothers in unfavorable conditions have enormous pressure to give up their children. We only have one source saying the child had sores etc, but who is corroborating?

Anyway if the baby was a few months old already, how could the woman register it as her own? You'd think it would have had a birth certificate already stating both original parents.

Also I'm not convinced they were so naive that they thought this was perfectly legal.

[asth77.livejournal.com]

I'm not trying to be an asshole, but I think that If they really cared about the baby they would have helped the couple in other ways instead eagerly of taking a child from a desperate mother's arms.

You have a point tbh.

[luvey.livejournal.com]

this kinda feels like another "growing pang" in korea's laws and conduct in how to deal with the increasing number of foreigners living in the country.

[xxyumekaxx.livejournal.com]

Maybe someone like a neighbour did? They maybe wondered where the baby suddenly came from or if they were close enough even heard from the adopting parents themselves (and I'm pretty sure that in that case they told that someone how it was nearly impossible to adopt a child as well).

[cher-ex3.livejournal.com]

OG. This whole article points out so many problems:

For the actual concept of adoption as a multiracial couple, IA that this seems to be another example of Korea's difficulty in transitioning into an increasingly diverse country. It almost screams xenophobia tbh. This part of the article especially points out the legal clarity of adoption by multiracial couples: "She [official from welfare ministry] later confirmed that Korean-foreign couples will be treated nearly the same as Koreans, but will have to hand in additional documents required under Article 10." So unless these agencies are unsure of how to handle that legal process (and are incapable of researching it as to avoid future confusion), I don't know how they could have 'no idea' how to handle the adoption. Also, there's a difference between being unsure of how to handle adoption processes of a multiracial family and saying that "adoption is impossible," as was apparently told to the prosecutor.

With that said, I'm a little sketched out by this particular couple. How the mother couldn't have known that signing herself as the biological mother of the child without going through the legal process is beyond me. I get that the process must have been arduous, but there could have been other ways to make sure the baby got the help it needed while still keeping things legal. Why not offer to help the mother take care of the baby while the adoption process was being handled?

[dafairyness.livejournal.com]

They sound like one of those extremely religious Christian couples who need to "save" as many babies as possible, tbh. I doubt doing anything other than adopting crossed their minds.

[modestgoddess79.livejournal.com]

yeah this whole story is sketch

[modestgoddess79.livejournal.com]

THIS! The solution to the mother who couldn't afford her baby was to provide opportunities to help her keep her baby not take possession of the baby illegally.

[1111-am.livejournal.com]

Huh. Idk I have conflicted opinions about adoption in general. I do always feel a bit sad reading about Korean adoptions though because I kind of always thought if I ever have kids I'd probably adopt from Korea, but idk what the process would be like being a Korean adoptee myself :/

[paendas.livejournal.com]

"The wife registered her as her own biological daughter, without knowing it was illegal." but why would she do that when she knew she wasn't the biological mother wth i don't believe it was down to ignorance here

although it is sad to see discrimination like this

[taembomb.livejournal.com]

although I love love love south Korea, sometimes I just don't know what the hell they're doing

[fiercediva.livejournal.com]

I know that single motherhood is stigmatized and discouraged, but why isn't the biological father compelled to support his offspring by law in SK?