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Women are powerful. Perhaps at the most arcane and Jungian level, we are creators. If one of us chooses to give birth, our communities are reminded of the immense, life-giving power a female body can possess.
Perhaps that is why motherhood is idealized in so many cultures ― at least, until it challenges social norms.
Outside of certain, culturally sanctioned contexts, the same motherhood role that is so revered can suddenly incur life-warping shame. In South Korea, the "correct" context for birth is within marriage to a heterosexual man. Women who defy this narrative are denied jobs, vilified by family, and seen as an inconvenience by the same government suffering from destabilizing population decline.
Since 2009, the Korean Unwed Mothers' Families Association has been at the forefront of changing this skewed view of motherhood. Through a nationwide network of members, it has worked tirelessly to safeguard the rights of unwed mothers and the children they choose to raise alone.
Before Christmas, I sat down with KUMFA president Kim Dokyoung, who outlined the goals of her nonprofit organization as South Korea enters a new, and potentially paradigm-shifting, decade.
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| President Kim Dokyung speaks at the Women's Marathon Festival in 2019. Photo by Shane Bolen. |
How did KUMFA get started?
In 2009, a group of unwed mothers got together to set up the organization. Until that point, there weren't many options ― either you could have an abortion or send your child to be adopted. There were no social support structures available for single parents.
Private adoption agencies like Holt and Eastern Welfare Society did have resources, but in to utilize them, the mothers would have to give up their children for adoption. Even if they refused to sign away their rights, they would be pressured to do so after giving birth. A representative from the agency would sit them down and say, "How do you think you're going to care for this child? You're a single mom. You're not married." They would then show the mothers pictures of families in the United States, saying, "If you give up your baby, they can live in a good house with a nice family and go to university. This is your duty as a mother."
The adoption agencies would pay hospitals 800,000 won for each baby they obtained. Some doctors would pressure a woman to agree to adoption in the hospital, and once she gave birth, adoption agency employees would take her infant away immediately. They wouldn't even show her the child's face. They didn't want her to change her mind.
If she did, the agencies would demand that she repay all the money that went into taking care of the newborn before adoption. Of course, most of the mothers can't afford that … only a few make enough to pay off the fees. Getting their children back could cost anywhere from $200 to $10,000. In some cases, the agencies demanded written permission from the father or the mother's parents in order to cancel the adoption. This rule has zero basis in law, of course. The staff just made it up.
That's why adoption agencies would require mothers to sign a nondisclosure agreement. It prevented them from telling anyone about had happened, and it was an effort to silence criticism.
In 2009, KUMFA defied these nondisclosure agreements, collected all the mothers' stories, and presented them at the National Assembly. We want Korean society to know unwed mothers are here, rearing our babies. We also want people to know about what goes on at adoption agencies. Together, unwed mothers have managed to change the culture by ourselves.
What are the age and gender demographics of people seeking assistance from KUMFA?
In Korea, only about 2 percent of single parents are in their teens. If a teenager becomes pregnant, their parents usually force them to have abortions. Some of these are actually physically forced. Other teens run away to deliver a child in secret. Most of the people we help are mothers in their 20s, 30s, or 40s who want to raise their children, but are worried about the stigma.
We try to help unwed fathers as well, but I think they feel shy about attending meetings. Due to traditional Korean ideas of masculinity, they don't want to come to the gatherings and admit they're having a hard time … but if they need help, we provide baby clothes, milk, and diapers at KUMFA.
Are there any estimates as to the gender ratio of single parents in Korea?
Nationally, I think the census numbers about single parenthood are incorrect. Before 2015, the Korean government didn't count single parent households in population numbers. The census program only asked, "Are you married," and if you checked no, you couldn't report your children, because it was assumed you didn't have any.
KUMFA got the government to change that policy. According to the 2015 data, there are 25,000 single mothers and 10,000 unwed fathers, but I doubt those statistics are accurate. Most of our members say they've never participated in the census. Next year, the government will have to count again.
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| KUMFA activists at a Single Mothers' Day Rally. Supporters come from a variety of backgrounds, including the diplomatic field, feminist groups, single and adoptive parents' organizations, and nonprofit organizations founded by Koreans adopted overseas. Photo by Shane Bolen. |
Despite the recent drop in North Korean refugee arrivals, do you often get requests for help from this demographic?
Yes. The North Korean defector community is supposed to be covered by the Ministry of Defense, but the welfare programs aren't targeted correctly. According to research, 70 to 80 percent of defectors are women, and yet the programs offered by the ministry aren't focused on them. We see many female refugees who arrive in South Korea pregnant or with children due to sex trafficking. The system doesn't keep detailed records of them or their needs.
Since North Korean women don't have a community here in the South, they have no idea of where to go to get help. To receive government welfare benefits, you have to meet certain requirements, and many refugee moms don't make the cut. That's probably why we've seen an increased number of North Korean refugee women at KUMFA.
Which KUMFA programs are the most popular with single parents in need?
Our biggest event in December is the annual Christmas party, where we invite many mothers and children from the provinces to Seoul and pay for their transport. They're given room and board and each child has presents prepared for them. Because of budget restrictions, we're only able to invite about 80 families out of 2,400 members nationwide.
However, our most popular program of the entire year is our Seollal Camp, because many mothers don't have relationships with their families. During Seollal, we play traditional Korean games with the children and the losers have to get up early to cook teokguk (ricecake soup), while the winners get to sleep more. The children receive a free hanbok (traditional Korean dress) and each gets an envelope with 5,000 won in it. This year, they were lucky … they all got 10,000 won instead.
As well as the holiday celebrations, we also run two unwed mothers' family shelters. The first, named Heater, is for emergencies. While residents live there, we provide a living allowance and all bills ― electric, water, and even general toiletries ― are paid for. If they need to go to the hospital, we pay for that. We also provide counseling and make sure that everyone receives the government benefits they're entitled to. Our second shelter is for more long-terms stays, and those women are usually in the process of searching for their own housing.
How does institutional discrimination against single parents manifest in 2019?
The first time we went to the National Assembly in 2009, we asked the government to give unwed mothers $500 a month to keep their babies. But many people said, "No way. If we support unwed mothers, there will be too many in the country. The rate will increase." So we responded, "If you got $500 a month, would you want to be an unwed mother in Korea?"
Right now, the government provides more financial assistance if you give your baby up for adoption. Orphanages get upwards of $1,000 a month in benefits per child. Adoptive families get $150 a month even if they have a large income, and the adopted child gets free medical care. But a single parent gets only $200 a month if their income is less than $1,500. When we started our association, we only got $50 a month if our income was less than $1,200.
With our work, Korean society has changed a lot. The child-rearing stipend for single parents has increased, and the government is now trying to support them us with housing. Before, policymakers thought, "The housing benefit should only come in the form of a shelter." But unwed mothers also want to choose where we live ― not in a group home, but with our babies, in our own rental properties.
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| A promotional illustration for KUMFA painted by director Yoo Jinhee, who is the daughter of an unwed mother. |
How does discrimination manifest on a more individual, face-to-face level?
Well, I need to talk about language for a moment. Foreigners, especially, ask me, "Why is the charity called Unwed Mothers' Families Association and not Single Mothers' Families Association?" But in the Korean, the words "single mother" mean someone is widowed or divorced. Being an unwed mother, on the other hand, carries a lot of stigma. That's why we named our nonprofit this way ― we wanted to change the meaning of "unwed mother" to something positive.
The negative connotation leads to job discrimination. If there are two pregnant women in a company, and one is engaged, and the other is not ― no boyfriend, no husband ― the latter will be a target for bullying. People don't want to work with her. The boss might ask her to resign, and co-workers will talk about her behind her back.
If a woman is pregnant and not married, her family might say, "If you get an abortion, we can accept you … but if you deliver this baby, you're not my daughter anymore." Often, the mother uses all her savings to give birth in a hospital, so she needs to find a job afterwards. But during the Korean job hiring process, companies ask applicants for their family registries. Her family certificate will list a baby, but no husband, and suddenly no one wants to hire her. A woman can fall into poverty for choosing to raise her child alone.
Unfortunately, the stigma doesn't end with her; it is passed on to her child. In my case, when my son went to elementary school, he came home saying, "My friend's mother said not to play with me." People think an unwed mother is a dangerous woman. Parents will met with each other, but exclude us.
For example, I joined the Parent Teacher Association at my son's elementary school when he enrolled, and I noticed people were whispering at the meeting. What I didn't know was that they were talking about me. I only realized it when a woman sitting next to me asked, "Are you an unwed mother?" It turns out one of the other parents had seen me seen me on a TV program, where the production company had written "unwed mother" under my name.
Eventually, all the PTA parents made a KakaoTalk group chat to communicate. I was invited, but nobody seemed to be talking in the chat room. Then one day, I saw all my son's classmates and their parents playing at the park. I thought, "Well, maybe I missed the message." But next month, they were back at the park again. One of the mothers found me and asked, "Why didn't you come?" I showed her the empty KakaoTalk room on my phone and said, "I never saw any appointment." Then she opened up her app and said, "Look at this. There's information about the meeting." That's how I found out they made a new KakaoTalk room without me.
Many armchair observers of Korea are eager to blame Confucianism for all of the nation's social ills, whether it's toxic workplaces or the stigma attached to being a single parent. But can the isolation of single mothers really be traced back to Confucian values alone, or is that a reductionist reading of the situation?
More than Confucianism, this is about patriarchy. Married couples don't face systemic discrimination even if they're teenage parents. But without marriage, having a baby is a big problem. In Korean culture, the man is fine, but the woman is not. Women who have children out of wedlock are seen as sexual deviants. Without marriage, delivering a baby means, "You don't have a normal family," or, "You have a complicated relationship with men," or even, "You're sexually promiscuous." People think that the unwed mothers have destroyed the normal family system.
For unwed fathers, however, people think, "oh, poor him. He's very kind and responsible." They never think of him as promiscuous. We have the same situation and economic problems, but they never treat fathers as sexual deviants.
We saw this contrast after some KUMFA members were interviewed on TV, over the radio, and in newspapers. In one instance, an activist who made media appearances awoke one night to find a stranger knocking on her door. It was a man from her village who was yelling, "Please let me sleep with you," because he had seen on TV that she was an unwed mother. Apparently the camera had shown the outside her house, which is how he found out where she lived. Now I always tell the TV crews, "Please don't shoot video outside any of our members' houses."
Later, the same woman was crossing the road, holding her baby's hand, and another man yelled, "Hey, sleep with me!" This was in front of her child.
I experienced this as well. Before men knew I was an unwed mother, men would treat me very gently. But after they found out, they'd call me at midnight and say, "Let's go drink together." Divorced mothers aren't treated like this. It only happens to women who have never been married.
Should women's rights groups in Korea make single parenthood a forefront issue?
Of course. Our group is not only about unwed mothers' rights, but all women's rights. We try to work together with feminist nonprofits, but some organizations think of a woman's choice to abort as being a higher priority. But we should also have the choice to raise our babies. I love myself, but I couldn't give up my baby. When we actually have to make choices like that, it's not easy.
Many volunteers at KUMFA seem to be Korean people who were adopted overseas. Can you explain the ties between the single parents' community and the adoption community?
When we started, not many people welcomed our association. But overseas adoptees welcomed and supported us immediately, doing whatever they could to help. They volunteered in the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program. They taught English, roughhoused with the children, donated money, and supported us emotionally … since 2009, most of our volunteers have been adoptees. As you know, more than 90 per cent of Korean children sent overseas were born to unwed parents. As adults, they would come to Korea, visit KUMFA and tell us, "You are doing a great job. I hope you don't send your baby for adoption … please take care of them yourself."
We worked with them to change the Special Adoption Law so the government can check on agencies and the unwed mothers' "shelters" that they run. What they [investigators] found is that in independent shelters, the number of mothers who surrender their children is very low … but in adoption agency shelters, the rate is very high. The reality is that the adoption agency shelters aren't for women. They're for collecting babies.
Since 2009, we have received a lot of help from overseas adoptees. We started hosting an annual Single Mom's Day Conference with them in 2011. Now, I think it's our turn to pay back all the support they've given us.
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| A promotional poster advertising KUMFA and GOA'L's documentary screening of "Mother, My Mother," directed by Park Sangmi. GOA'L, or Global Overseas Adoptee Link, is an organization run by Koreans who were adopted abroad as children. |
As 2019 ends, what are the new challenges single mothers will face in the coming decade?
KUMFA has been operating more than 11 years now. In the next decade, we want unwed mothers to live well and wherever they choose. We have a national network with centers in Gwangju, Busan, Cheonan, and Seoul, and I hope that everywhere we exist, the government agencies are held accountable. As of 2019, most of the benefits for the community are in Seoul. I hope that the support network will become stronger so parents living in rural areas can receive better benefits. With the declining birth rate, the government should also increase benefits for single parents.
Before 2009, no one knew about us, and no one told our stories … but when KUMFA was founded, we came together as a group. A group is powerful. We were afraid, but we needed to do this for our babies. We have paid a great price.
You can follow KUMFA's activities on their website or make a holiday donation using the following bank account number:
Kookmin Bank:
371101-04-108809
