Tuesday, January 6, 2015

As the New Year Dawns in Korea - Some Changes are Coming

The New Year celebration, no matter where it is held, is always met with expectations of more promising hope and better future.  But when it comes to adoption landscape in Korea, it is hard to see the year 2015 will be any better.  It is hard to be more hopeful or optimistic when so many children are impacted by the special adoption law. With so many children abandoned and the number of adoption less than half of what it used to be before the law, it is very hard to be optimistic. Pastor Lee of the Baby Box asked an appropriate question when he asked, "For whom was this law made to serve?"  Definitely not for the children that are being abandoned as their rights to homes have diminished significantly.

Hardline stance against the adoption agencies
The Ministry of Health and Welfare has just thrown another wrench at the three adoption agencies, by enacting a new rule as of January 6, where the agencies must show clear evidence of making efforts to place children into biological families, and also show that all efforts to place children domestically have been exhausted before placing a child overseas.  Also, the agencies are to glean out more qualified parents, and provide one year of post-adoption service after the adoption.  If the agencies violate any of these rules, they are liable to be shut down for business between 7 to 15 days. 

The stringent requirements above are not without cause as it is the result of one adoptive mother in Korea that abused and caused death of a child a month ago, and the agency that provided the adoption service to the woman without fully checking out on her background, was blamed for the mistake.  And of course there was Hyunsu O'Callaghan, who died at the hands of his adoptive father in Maryland last year that resulted in stricter psychological screening for adopting parents and extended post-adoption service to one year.

Changes in the Family Court
There is also a news that two or three judges at the family court may be rotated out and replaced by other judges. However, the judge that has the best view on intercountry adoption will remain, but he is also known to take longer than others to process the cases. But a representative at an adoption agency confided with me that this does not mean that the court procedure will be delayed much. She predicted based on the past experience that no more than a month delay initially, and then catch up right away. So the waiting families need not be concerned regarding this. It is certain that some changes will happen in the court, but nothing has been decided so far. 

EP Status as of 2014
The year 2014 has been a challenging year for domestic adoption in Korea.  The three agencies worked hard to place children domestically, and I fear that my initial estimate of 600 was somewhat optimistic, meaning the number may fall below 550, thus the number of intercountry EPs granted may be lower than 400 that was estimated earlier. I am guessing that all three agencies will total around 360 EPs total (again this is my estimate).

Despite all the challenges brought by these changes, I don't want to paint a doom and gloom forecast. It is increasingly becoming evident that despite the refusals by the Ministry and some anti-adoption organizations to admit that the special adoption law has backfired causing harms to so many children, more and more people are becoming convinced that while the law had some good aspects to it, it did not result in the best interest of the children. I hope this realization will continue to be spread to the people in the government to revise the special adoption law to allow anonymous relinquishment option available for unwed mothers that don't want or cannot raise their children.








21 comments:

  1. Dear Steve
    Any info about the last EP batches who are still waiting for approval?
    I am so sorry for all of the children suffering under that new law!

    ReplyDelete
  2. If the EPs have been submitted they will be approved by the Ministry soon. I am hoping within a month or earlier.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I didn't see it specifically stated above, but do you know if this new law after January 6th pertains to children not yet with court dates or not yet in the process at all/without matched families?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This new regulation does not pertain to the children that are already in the process, especially if the children are already submitted for EPs and submitted to the court.
      The truth is that the agencies have already made reasonable efforts to place them domestically, but no parents are found, thus the children have been assigned to the intercountry adoption.

      Delete
  4. Dear Steve, It would be interesting to know how the decreased number of adoptions relate to the development in the number of abandoned children and children available to adopt. I.e. Some people would argue that less adoptions is a victory for the SAL as to more mothers actually are keeping their babies and thus less children needing new families. However if the actual net effect is more children growing up without a family to call their own, this is nothing less than a disaster

    In Sweden where I live, adult adoptees right now are still strongly debating that international adoptions are a driver of abandonments and is hindering the changes that needs to take place in Korea to make it possible for the birthmonterhs to keep thair babies. I have hard time seeing that link with the decrease in adoptions, but it would be great with some numbers help nuance the debate.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Kakan, thank you for the very interesting question. It is true some unwed mothers are keeping their children, but that is not enough.
      Some time ago a Korean news media JTBC (http://news.jtbc.joins.com/article/article.aspx?news_id=NB10696577) reported that only 20% of the babies are claimed back by unwed mothers, and that leave 80% that are still left abandoned and put into institutions.
      The notion that the number of adoptions in Korea is reduced because more unwed mothers are keeping their babies is not true. For example, before the law the domestic adoption averaged over 1400 per year. In 2013, the year when the SAL was fully implemented for a whole year, the domestic adoption fell to 686 for the entire year, and for the year 2014 it will be fewer than 600. So does this mean that over 700 unwed mothers have all the sudden decided to keep their babies? Not true at all. I know there are some unwed mothers that decided to keep their babies, but they are nowhere near 700 needed to justify the reason for the reduction in adoption.
      The adoption is decreased mainly the SAL makes it much harder for adoptive parents to qualify, and SAL has not factored into the cultural aspect of adoption that is very hard for Koreans to accept. That is, the removal of secret adoption. The SAL completely removed a typical Korean couple's desire to adopt a child secretly. It is because the law has made it impossible for the Koreans to adopt secretly as they must now register their child as adopted (because the child is now already registered under childs' unwed mother's registry), and also the parents must appear before a judge to be evaluated and approve/disapprove the adoption.
      I would tell your friends that adoption is in response to 'already separated children', not the cause of separation between the child and his/her birthmother. If adoption was the cause of separation, then what do you call 17,000 children that are in orphanages that are already separated. Surely adoption didn't cause that. Even with the SAL, the birthmothers have two years to make up their minds whether to reclaim their children or not before the adoptions are finalized. Even after repeated notices sent, they do not want to keep their children. Out of hundreds of adoptions that are finalized after nearly two years of process, fewer than five have reclaimed their children. Can you still blame adoption for causing the separation of a child with his birthmother? We need to stop this foolish reasoning. Like I mentioned before, adoption is a response to already separated children, not the cause.

      Delete
  5. Can you please clarify if the new policies apply to families that have a submitted EP, but are not submitted to court (EP not approved)? Thank you for all your insights. It is greatly appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The new policy does not affect those children that have already been submitted for EP nor submission to the court. In fact, most of children that are already in process are not affected as they couldn't proceed without meeting the appropriate criteria.

      Delete
    2. Steve, do you have any sense of when the next EPs are approved if they'll approve just 10/31 submission, multiple submissions, or possibly all in one fell swoop?

      Delete
    3. SCR, I heard that they (the Ministry) is working hard to process the EPs may approve some as early as Mid January. I'm sure they are getting to the bottom of it.

      Delete
  6. We just found this website, a lot great information. Thanks for all you have done.
    We are waiting for our lovely boy to come home. Our EP is submit part of oct 31 batch.

    Question, if we adopt again for our 2nd kid from korea, do we need to go through the same lengthy process again or there is some expeditions?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ming, your process time will definitely be reduced since your homestudy file is pretty fresh. Please check with your agency on this as it varies depending on the agencies.

      Delete
  7. Steve, yours is the only blog I read concerning international adoption and I just want to thank you for all you do. It is encouraging to me and my family as we wait to bring our son home from Korea 😀

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ming your process time will not be reduced the second time around. We are going through the process for the second time now and it has been way longer.Our first child came home at 18 months old and our child waiting is already 19 months old, with no end in sight. We have not yet even had our file submitted yet for EP. We were matched 13 months ago . Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but feel we all need to know the truth. We all have jumped through hoops to do everything they wanted us to do for the well being of the children, but how can this wait be for the well being of the children. We would love to adopt more children but we could never handle this process again. It is truly heart wrenching. Sure hope you get approved soon.

    ReplyDelete
  9. With the new rule as of January 6th asking to make more efforts to place the child back in his biological family or into domestic adoption, do you think the average age of children placed into intercountry adoption will rise again?
    Thanks for all the info here! Czar

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dear Steve
    Any news regarding EP approvals?? 4 batches submitted (10/31, 11/27, 12/08, 12/29, 01/12/15) and still none approved :-(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I thought they would be approved by now. Let me check with Korea and get back to you, or update on another blog.

      Delete
    2. The October and November batches have just been approved yesterday :) But unfortunately not the December ones. Thanks so much Steve!

      Delete
    3. Lalaqueen, Boy, you beat me to it. I called an agency last night and they said they will be approved this week. Glad to hear the good news.

      Delete
  11. Yes. My agent called me and confirmed ep approval. Its part of 10/31 batch.

    ReplyDelete
  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete