Korea must stop overseas adoption
Tobias Hubinette a.k.a. Lee
Sam-dol
Ph.D. candidate in Korean studies
Department of Oriental languages
Stockholm University, Sweden
Tobias was adopted from Korea and is a Ph.D. candidate in Korean
Studies at Stockholm
University, Sweden. He writes about the Korean
adoption issue and Korean images of
overseas adopted Koreans as his
dissertation project. He contributed an article to the
Korean American Forum in 2003 titled "Korean-Swedish Relations and the Koreans
in Sweden," KAF 2003 Article No.6. The following article has also been published
in the Korea Herald's Reader's Opinion Column in March 1, 2005.
Between 1953-2003 and for more than half a century ever since the Korean War ended,
154,573 Korean children have been adopted to 15 different Western countries: United
States (102,606), France (11,042), Sweden (8,830), Denmark (8,518), Norway (5,993),
Netherlands (4,099), Belgium (3,697), Australia (3,039), Germany (2,352), Canada
(1,739), Switzerland (1,111), New Zealand (559), Luxembourg (468), Italy (382) and
England (72). It is a fact that no other country in the world has ever sent away so many
of its own citizens for overseas adoption in modern history, and still every year between
2,200-2,400 children leave Korea for adoption to United States, France, Denmark,
Norway, Netherlands, Australia, Canada and Luxembourg.
Today, Korea is one of the 20th richest countries in the world, and a global leading
nation in IT technology. Among the 20 or so countries allowing their children to be
sent away for overseas adoption to Western countries like Colombia, Ecuador,
Ethiopia, China, Vietnam and the Philippines, Korea sticks out as being the only
industrialized and democratic country doing so. Furthermore, Korea is also one of
the countries in the world having the lowest fertility rate besides having an
unbalanced sex ratio, something that again makes continuing overseas adoption to
look strange, unnecessary and outdated.
Because of Korea¡¯s leading global role in the field of overseas adoption, the image of
Korea is extremely negative in many Western countries due to the massive presence
of adopted Koreans. In Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg and
Belgium there are very few Koreans who have emigrated voluntarily, so the ethnic
Korean presence is made up of adopted children and adoptees from Korea. This
has caused Western people to believe that Korea is a poor military dictatorship that is
still suffering from the effects of the Korean War. Korean companies like Samsung
and Hyundai are thought to be Japanese, Korean people are thought to be stupid and
Korean culture to be primitive. Besides, many Westerners also think that it is wrong
for a country to export and sell its own children and in the end to destroy its own
future. There is certainly a risk for Korea to loose credibility and goodwill in Western
countries, and opportunities for investment and tourism because of continuous
overseas adoption, which naturally provokes associations to war, corruption, social
unrest, poverty and authoritarianism.
Another fact is that Korea is rated as number 63 our of 70 countries on the Gender
Empowerment Index making it comparable to countries like Bangladesh, Yemen and
Honduras in terms of gender inequality and oppression of women. Moreover, Korea
is repeatedly criticized by United Nations¡¯ Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights for not implementing measures to counter discrimination based on sex,
while its Committee on the Rights of the Child expresses concern for the continuance
of overseas adoption from a country that has the world¡¯s 12th largest economy.
During the 1950s mixed children fathered by American soldiers were dispatched to
avoid stigmatization, and during the 1960s and 1970s children of young factory
workers who were relinquished out of poverty dominated overseas adoption.
However, from the 1980s and even more since the 1990s, the absolute majority of
children who are nowadays sent to foreign countries are born by young and unwed
girls attending high school or college. These young girls in their teenage of early 20s,
often from a middle-class background, are locked in secretly at maternity homes
belonging to the adoption agencies as soon as they get to know that they are
pregnant. At the maternity homes, they are persuaded to relinquish their children to
save the honor of their families and in reality to feed the adoption agencies¡¯ need of
a steady supply of children for overseas adoption. In other words, a combination of
patriarchal attitudes and economic greed lies behind today¡¯s overseas adoption
from Korea, and thus the rights of both women and children are completely
ignored.
Finally, new scientific research has come to light in Sweden showing that overseas
adoptees in Sweden of whom most are from Korea have substantial problems in
establishing themselves as adults in terms of getting a job and creating a family.
For example, 60 percent of the overseas adoptees have a job compared to 77
percent among ethnic Swedes, and half of the overseas adoptees up belong to the
lowest income category compared 29 percent of the Swedes. This means that there
is widespread discrimination against Korean adoptees on the labor market, and
when they get a job they are low-paid. Moreover, 29 percent of the overseas
adoptees are married compared to 56 percent of Swedes, meaning that Korean
adoptees are considered unattractive and have problems in finding a spouse.
Other studies show high levels of psychiatric illness, drug and alcohol addiction,
criminality and suicide among Sweden¡¯s overseas adoptees. The most shocking
finding is that the suicide rate is 500 percent higher among overseas adoptees
than among ethnic Swedes.
So if Korea is to be acknowledged in the Western world as an advanced and
modern industrialized and democratic nation and in the end to gain self-respect,
overseas adoption has to be stopped and the rights of children and single
mothers have to be protected instead of sending them to Western countries
where they suffer from discrimination, racism, suicide and psychiatric
problems.