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Gov't submits motion to ratify Hague Adoption Convention
By You Soo-sun
The National Assembly has been stalling on ratifying the Hague Adoption Convention, which seeks to minimize inter-country adoption and establish safeguards for children.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare submitted a motion for approval of the convention on Oct. 18. The convention, which enforces stricter requirements for inter-country adoption and calls for protections against related abuses such as child trafficking, came into effect in the international community in 1995.
Since then, 96 countries have ratified the convention; South Korea signed the convention in May 2013, but has yet to ratify it.
If the National Assembly approves the motion, it is expected to reduce the number of inter-country adoptions and change the practices surrounding the system.
Specifically, it maintains that inter-country adoptions should be made in the best interests of the child and that each state should take measures to enable the child stay with their biological family ― such as by providing aid to single-parent households and encouraging domestic adoption.
It calls on the government to take more responsibility and imposes stricter requirements on adoption agencies to prevent the abduction, sale of, or trafficking of children.
Additionally, it seeks strengthened cooperation between the countries involved in the process to ensure the basic rights of children.
This will curtail the roles private adoption agencies play in Korea, primarily the Holt Children's Services in Korea, Eastern Social Welfare Society and Social Welfare Society, which have served as the prime agents facilitating the process.
Many adoptees have criticized the system's loopholes in ensuring the naturalization of all adoptees, managing of birth and adoption records, and following up with adoptees abroad. They argue that of the 167,000 Koreans adopted abroad over the past six decades, about 19,000 were not naturalized in their adopted countries.
Some adoptees questioned the efficacy of the convention in ensuring adequate safeguards for children.
"I think the Hague Convention serves to facilitate adoption rather than protect children and preserve families. The Korean government should step up after such a long history of being the largest exporter of children," said Simone Eun-mi Huits, international public affairs manager at KoRoot, an NGO supporting overseas Korean adoptees.
Huits also called for more fundamental reforms with an implementation plan.
"Korea does not have an implementation plan in place, so it seems they are doing it more for the outside world, so that it looks good, rather than to really improve the system and work on family preservation and child protection."
"The government should include adoptees' voices ― while they are talking, my people are dying," she said, adding over six Korean adoptees have committed suicide this year alone.
"Korea could be such an important player in the children's rights movement ― but will it step up?"
