The Process of Preparing a Korean Baby for Overseas Adoption
In the heyday of adoption from South Korea, laws concerning adoption, welfare and guardianship gave unchecked power to adoption agency presidents to act for children that the government did not want to support financially themselves through local, Korean funded welfare programs. It was easier and cheaper to send the children of the poor and unwed abroad than to help them keep their kids. The economic benefits were paramount.
Because of the laws in place, the agencies were able to quite easily and efficiently transform us into adoptable children for families in the West.
This process was achieved through simply filing documents to be rubber stamped by various officials. For a long time, I had normalised this. But it wasn’t normal. From the point that the agency had us to the point we were put on a plane, there were no professional assessments or oversight to work out whether the adoption was appropriate for the child and mother, whether the child was legally adoptable, whether the child had more complex needs that would require additional attention in the adoptive country. There was no subjective determination of suitability. If the correct papers were filed, the child became eligible for adoption. It’s for this reason that many adoptees are now finding out that they were taken from their families in illegal and illicit ways.
The agencies were not passive receivers of babies who tasked themselves with organising adoptions. They actively engaged in seeking out and procuring more babies - creating a supply.
It was in this way that South Korea laid the groundwork for streamlining the international adoption process, created a supply chain and turned the practice into an industry.
Below are the basic steps that our agencies would have undertaken to prepare us for our adoptions:
a little preface here: most of my research relates to the period in the 1980s when South Korea was sending the highest numbers of children in its history of adoption.
In the period 1980-1989, 66,511 babies and children were sent out of South Korea for adoption.
I acknowledge that there will be material differences in the laws, circumstances and prevalence of events in other decades and in the stories of other people adopted in the 1980s.
What I write here may not apply equally to all cases. But I do hope it can help others to examine their paperwork critically and to understand the legal steps that made them adoptable.
You will note that I write here facetiously from the perspective of the adoption agencies. Please do not mistake this as taking lightly the gravity of what happened to us! I had to inject a tiny bit of humour after feeling so much despair from researching this process.
Step 1
Acquire child
Methods include:
Mother relinquishing with written consent (mother may be under impression that the separation is only temporary and that the child will stay in Korea. This is fine. It’s beneficial to perpetuate this fiction, as she will be more likely to hand over the child if this is her belief)
Receiving child from family member or other person (no parental consent needed)
Bribing doctors and nurses to lie about condition of baby to induce relinquishment
Taking from orphanages (irrelevant if in temporary care or permanently relinquished)
N.B. In some cases you will have written consent from a parent. However, in all cases, you will say that the baby has been ABANDONED. This will help you get around any questions of illegality etc. It is also necessary for the child’s visa, if you intend to export them to the United States.
Step 2
Declare child abandoned to District Office. This must be done, even if the child was not abandoned.
It may seem more sensible to report an abandoned child to the police, so that family members or people known to the child might be sought out and contacted. But adoption agencies have special permission to skip this step.
Once declared abandoned, the child is a clean slate and adoption papers can be produced.
Step 3
Apply to the Family Court to give the child a new made-up name and family origin. You have free reign to give them whatever name or origin takes your fancy. Get creative!
They will grant this summarily. As long as they believe the child was abandoned (which is what you will have told them) they won’t question how you got this child.
Soon after, you will receive the child’s Family Registry/호적등번/Orphan Hojuk. You will need this for Step 5.
Step 4
Apply for the child’s Resident Registration Number (주민등록번호) at the neighbourhood office.
You will need this for step 8.
Step 5
Apply for Guardianship of the child from District Office.
Once declared as Guardian, you have full autonomy over the child and you can get to the practical steps of exporting him/her.
Step 6
(if child not relinquished i.e. you don’t have written consent from a parent/family member)
Apply to Family Court to have a bulletin board notification put up seeking the parents or caregivers of child.
The notification must be up for 20 days.
If there is no response, the child is officially adoptable.
Step 7
Give unambiguous written consent for a foreign couple to adopt the child.
They will need this in the court hearing before being granted the adoption order.
Foreign courts don’t care if the consent came from the child’s parents. Something in writing from their “guardian” is sufficient.
Step 8
Apply for:
Visa for adoptive country
Permission for child to emigrate from Ministry of Health and Welfare
You may need to provide the adoptive parents with documents to support their visa application for the child.
Step 9
Receive payment for child from adoptive parents
Going rate in mid 1980s $1,500-6,000. Dependent on receiving country.
Preferably in US Dollars.
Step 10
Hand over child to adoptive parent/escort so they can be taken to their adoptive country.
Your job is now done! The rest will be handled in the adoptive country.