What?!?! Some positive news from South Korea?!? It does happen!

[ashiva.livejournal.com]

In relation to this article on problems with single parenthood in South Korea, there are some positive changes under works:

More State Support for Single Moms Planned

The government is moving to offer more support to single mothers as part of efforts to encourage them to keep their own babies, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) said Thursday.

The body also plans to help adoptees find their biological parents by improving systems and documentation, a spokesman said.

"Once the recommendations are accepted, more single mothers can keep their children through subsidies," he said.

The commission advised related ministries, including the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Justice, to offer subsidies so that single parents can find a place to raise their babies.

The revisions are subject to the approval of the National Assembly.

So far, single mothers have received no state benefits. They can seek help from private or government-subsidized facilities but they have to leave the centers a few months after delivery.

Many single parents tend to give up their infants for that reason, leading to an increasing number of domestic and overseas adoptions.

As of 2008, 80.9 percent of 1,306 children adopted here and 89.1 percent of 1,250 adopted abroad were born to single mothers.

The agency also proposed that women giving birth to a child alone be given more time to consider whether or not to let a baby go with the help of professional consultants, as well as the chance to cancel their decision.

As part of efforts to encourage domestic adoptions, especially of disabled children, the commission suggested increasing allowances for adopting families.

Currently, those adopting a child aged 13 or younger are given 100,000 won (about $85) per month and families adopting disabled children receive 551,000 won every month and an additional 2.5 million won for medical treatment per year.

The ACRC also proposed establishing a governmental organization to manage adoption and computerize related documents in a more systematic way.

People adopted abroad have had difficulty finding their biological parents because many private adoption agencies do not keep birth certificates and adoption-related documents.

Between 1982 and 2007, a total of 46,043 overseas adoptees visited their motherland to find their biological parents and learn Korean culture.

In 2007, 1,618 people requested that the government and adoption agencies find their biological parents but only 404 of them met long-lost ones.

Korea was once disgracefully nicknamed as the world's biggest baby-exporting country because more than 200,000 babies had been adopted abroad by 2000.

The number of overseas adoptions has gone down but still more than 1,000 children are sent to foreign countries every year, according to government statistics.

Source: The Korea Times

Yay for subsidies, though I do hope they also start soon working on finding solutions how to reduce social stigma caused by single parenthood in Korea.

Comments

[black-silver.livejournal.com]

yay for progress :)

[aunts.livejournal.com]

♥

[jyurian21.livejournal.com]

I'm so happy for this, this is making me not give up the hope of South Korea actually becoming an awesome place (it mostly is because I partly love it's culture except for a few stuff that I hope will change with time)

Yay Korea ^^

[unsospiro.livejournal.com]

I love how no one gives a shit about positive news but people flock to the negative news lol

[aunts.livejournal.com]

BECAUSE WE ALL LOVE DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA~

[blueskies14.livejournal.com]

that's what i was going to say, lol.

[jaele.livejournal.com]

I came to this post only to say that!
But you beat me to it lol.

[cynicalsnark.livejournal.com]

Because everyone likes SRS BSNS and wank, and you don't get much of that in positive posts

[risu-risu.livejournal.com]

haha i love that gif.

i guess people like to rage about stuff more XD; well, that & there seems to be so much more negative news than positive news :/

[miyavi-type.livejournal.com]

Hey, I like good news. Especially when it concerns women.

[legens-legentis.livejournal.com]

Well at least that's something.

[jaele.livejournal.com]

love her:)

[katzsong.livejournal.com]

Perfect gif for this news!! More support for the single mothers ^_^ And next I hope for less stigma for the single mothers and the children, plus more responsibility from the men, please.

[baeby-bloo-skys.livejournal.com]

yay for progress

[locofruitcake.livejournal.com]

As part of efforts to encourage domestic adoptions, especially of disabled children

maybe this will be the first step to lowering korea's social prejudice towards the disabled.

progress indeed :3

♥

[jaded-skys.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I really hope so. We've got some children at my school who have special needs, and they're all sweethearts. I'm so happy that there's are some great teachers here teaching them. ♥

[locofruitcake.livejournal.com]

Are you teaching children in Korea? I'm really glad to hear this! I heard some stuff from my friend (who is Korean) about how the Korean society regards disabled ppl, and it was upsetting :(

[jaded-skys.livejournal.com]

I am indeed. I work at a middle school and there are about... maybe 4 who are mentally disabled, and a few more kiddos with some learning problems, but they've got great teachers, even their own gym teacher, and they participate in all the special days, like the school festival.

Well, I think that where ever you go there will be horrible people who think of the disabled in a certain way, but there are people here who don't, which is the start to changing those other peoples minds and realize how wrong they are.

[omgcats.livejournal.com]

Social progress is exciting indeed! Good for them.

[platinumpair.livejournal.com]

It sounds really great. It's good to progress.

[callmeliyah.livejournal.com]

thats good to hear after all the negative news thats been going around lately. good for them. :)

[crystalheng.livejournal.com]

Awesome :D Baby steps, Korea. Baby steps to become an awesome country before I have enough money to visit you :D

[faithgrowsold.livejournal.com]

korea and social progress? whut, really? awesome.

but seriously, i'm glad they're working on it the whole adoption system. i just wish they'd work on making it so that single woman didn't have to give up babies to be adopted in the first place ):

[hp-groupie.livejournal.com]

Change. : )

It's small...but it's coming.

[poppy-sky.livejournal.com]

Currently, those adopting a child aged 13 or younger are given 100,000 won (about $85) per month

...what does that buy?

BTW, I immediately thought of Jaejoong LOL

[jesusluvsjaeho.livejournal.com]

yay for progress! as a single mother, this makes me glad. XD

small steps that will hopefully lead to big change.

[risu-risu.livejournal.com]

positive news in general seems to be harder & harder to come by :(

i'm glad that steps are being taken to help out single mothers & encourage adoption. its better late than never i suppose.

is there a stigma around adoption in south korea too? i'm guessing from the tone of the article that the majority of adopted children are being adopted abroad. maybe if the monthly financial aid was greater it would encourage people to adopt domestically because finances would be less of an obstacle.

[jaded-skys.livejournal.com]

Korean society is based a lot on Confucianism and one part of that is the bloodline/family. It doesn't consider people outside of the family bloodline to be truly part of the family, so adopted children aren't "as good as" a natural children.

I believe there was a campaign a year or so ago to promote adoption, but it was put into more of a "we're not a 4th/5th world country so we shouldn't have to have foreign adoptions," opposed to putting it into a more positive light for the child and the families that do choose adoption.

[risu-risu.livejournal.com]

ugh, it sounds like that ad might have actually increased the stigma more than making steps to tear it down.

another sad thing about the idea of adopted children not being "as good as" biological children is that i hear that from people in the US too. and i'm under the impression that the US accounts for a lot of these foreign adoptions. its seems to be a form of discrimination that exists in plenty of places, but maybe its just not as severe of socially acceptable to be vocal about :/

[jaded-skys.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can't understand the idea that a child isn't "good enough" because they're not your biological child. You raise and love a child then they're yours, no matter if they're natural or adopted, so how on earth could anyone see them as not "good enough?!" Seriously, it blows my mind.

Personally, I'll probably end up having one child naturally and adopting another, simply because there are so many kids out there who need a good home. And hot damn, any child of mine is gonna be adored.

[risu-risu.livejournal.com]

i don't get it myself. the idea of discriminating against a child based on their circumstances & things they obviously have no control over is really disconcerting.

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

Ah nice!

[rawthorne.livejournal.com]

It's excellent that they're considering it and I'm hopeful that it will become fact. Maybe if single mothers aren't pressured into giving up their children so they can retain a decent living standard, their overall position in society will change somewhat.

It's slow change, but it's change nonetheless.

[ficcy.livejournal.com]

Yay for improvements. :D

[czarny.livejournal.com]

YESSSS