Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Alyallen]

An interesting look at the divisive issue of overseas adoptions of Korean children. Courtesy of NPR, click on the link to listen to the story....

Korean Adoptees Examine Origins, Upbringings
by Jason Strother

All Things Considered, August 25, 2007 � Some 600 adoptees from South Korea recently attended a convention in Seoul to share experiences and to learn more about their birth country. Since the Korean War in the 1950s, more than 200,000 orphaned South Korean babies have been sent to live with Western families � over half of them to American homes. While the number of overseas adoptions from South Korea has declined, it still sends about 2,000 children abroad each year.

http://tinyurl.com/2f6wla

Maybe I'm just being too simple minded but why would anyone prefer to live in an orphanage and live with the "stigma" of having no family or bloodline (at least a documented one) as oppose to living somewhere else where theoretically you are wanted and welcome?

[just another day]

i imagine some of it is because of identity problems.

since 1988, there has been huge efforts for koreans to adopt korean babies. especially as there was huge international criticism of korean adoptions, as korea became known as a baby exporter in the 70's and early 80's.

but the korean gov't has been encouraging adoptions in korea, so thats why international adoptions have been on the decline.

nowadays, China is #1 in adoption babies to america.

but i imagine that most of these adoptees protesting believe that their identity problems are not worth it.

btw, npr is a great program.

[Tony_Balony]

[thepeel]

I'd be a touch pissed off if I adopted some kind from some developing backwards country that didn't want her/him only for him to whine later in life about an "identity problem". I knew a few Africans in Edmonton (white parents) who were fine. Maybe this is another Uniquely Korea thing.

NPR is great. Excellent podcasts.

[On the other hand]

[Privateer]

I don't think it's as simple as that they're just concerned with the identity problem aspect. They're also angry with the Korean government for continuing to fail to protect the rights of single mothers and of babies even now that Korea is no longer poor; and they're appealing to Korean society at large to change its attitude to adoption.

It seems to me they're very unlikely to succeed in the latter case since the idea of adopting a child as a way of giving back some of the wealth you've been blessed with, and the idea that succeeding in supporting a child into adulthood is reward enough in itself and that bloodline does not matter, is not well understood here.

It's also not likely to catch on any time soon because the cost of raising a child here continues to rise so, for a Korean couple, the idea of putting all their money and hard work into raising a child that isn't even their own blood seems absurd. Even if a couple were rich enough and didn't attach importance to the idea of bloodlines - a very large assumption - they'd surely know an adopted child would suffer all kinds of discrimination.

Hopefully these protestors can at least raise awareness of these issues in Korea, and they're smart enough to leverage Korean national pride for their cause.

[Alyallen]

[thepeel]

Privateer, I think "Korean Pride" might be the problem here... These adoptees see "their" people beating their chests with pride and talking about the purity of their blood and how special they are. And the adopted kid knows, rationally, that he is exactly the same as them. And they exclude him. But America/Canada/Sweden doesn't treat him the way other Koreans told him he deserved to be treated.

OTOH, I just don't know if socio-economic status is the cause here. I think this can be tied into a whole range of Korean behaviors directly linked to the post-colonial mixture of feelings involving a defense mechanism manifested in feelings of racial supremacy and history of ethnic dishonor and failure. Odd. Singapore was colonized too, and they don't ever mention it or have the wacky complex of better/worse that does Korea. Maybe cause they are multiethnic.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[just another day]

you know, i've noticed a lot of adoptees lately that are very much into "civil rights" of asian americans in america.

maybe a "bad experience" with adoption is one of the few things that bond adoptees together. along with envy of korean natives in korea, who grew up "normally". i imagine there is some element of that as well. its probably a pretty complex issue. altho i believe there are some adoptees that have good experiences as well.

[cangel]

I often wonder what Ho John's been up to since the korean war.

[Privateer]

[Alyallen]

It sounds like Korea has nothing like Guatemala...

Cleaning Up International Adoptions

By MICA ROSENBERG/ANTIGUA Fri Aug 31, 6:05 PM ET

Earlier this month, dozens of Guatemalan police, soldiers and government officials raided Casa Quivira, a foster home in the colonial town of Antigua. They took custody of 46 babies and accused the home of failing to issue the proper paperwork for adoptions. Worse, says Carmen de Wennier, Guatemala's Secretary for Social Welfare, Casa Quivira is being investigated for illegally trafficking infants, an accusation that its owners vehemently deny: "If these children were bought in the womb," de Wennier says, "that is a crime."

News of the raid, a story that rivaled Guatemala's upcoming presidential election for headlines, was especially alarming for women like Ana Escobar, a Guatemalan, and Ann Roth, an American. Last spring, armed gunmen held up Escobar in the storage room of her Guatemala City shoe store while two female accomplices stole her 6-month-old daughter Esther. Escobar, 26, is convinced the baby was put up for illegal adoption, and she came to Antigua to see if Esther was one of the infants found at Casa Quivira. "We are not animals to be bought and sold," she says, clutching Esther's photo. Meanwhile, in Chicago, Roth had been waiting with her husband David to adopt a boy and a girl from Casa Quivira - but now, after having paid half the $30,000 fee, she finds everything in a precarious state of limbo. "I feel," says Ann, 37, "like someone has kicked me in the stomach ten times."

That feeling, which more and more Guatemalan mothers and adoptive mothers in the U.S. are experiencing these days, reflects the growing awareness that adoption in Guatemala is all too often a multi-million-dollar underworld trade. The nation's ill-regulated adoption business, run by private lawyers and notaries, is rife with corruption, including forged paperwork, payoffs to women who agree to hand over their children and, in some cases, newborns stolen from hospitals or mothers' arms, according to the government human rights ombudsman's office. One U.S. couple spent almost two years and $50,000 to adopt their Guatemalan daughter, Ella, only to find out later that her biological mother "was essentially a baby factory" who had sold many of her eight children to a dealer, says the adoptive father. "It felt almost dirty, like we were involved in a child brokering scheme."

The activity is driven largely by surging U.S. demand. With adoption in the U.S. still a bureaucratic nightmare, and with fewer babies available in distant places like China and Eastern Europe, Guatemala has become an increasingly popular adoption source for U.S couples. Almost 5,000 babies were adopted last year from the nation of 13 million - the world's highest per capita adoption rate - and 95% of them went to the U.S. Since 1990, in fact, more than 25,000 Guatemalan children have been placed in American homes.

Reports and rumors of shady adoption dealings in Guatemala have surfaced for several years, but the country's authorities are now under increasing pressure from Washington as well as their own citizens to clean the adoption scene, and that could cause the adoption surge to slow. After hearing of cases in Guatemala in which babies were switched in the middle of adoption processes, for example, the U.S. recently announced that it would require two DNA tests on babies to ensure that a child issued an exit visa is the same one originally given up for adoption. More important, Guatemalan lawmakers earlier this year ratified the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which will tighten controls - by closely tracking the use of adoption fees and by creating a centralized adoption authority that can be easily regulated - in both Guatemala and the U.S when it takes effect January 1. As stories appear in the Guatemalan media about child traffickers rushing to find children before the year's end, citizen mobs in several small towns have attacked suspected baby-snatchers, in some cases beating or burning them alive.

Florida resident Clifford Phillips, who runs Casa Quivira with his Guatemalan wife, insists they're victims of the spreading anti-adoption hysteria and persecution. "This is an injustice that needs to be stopped now," says Phillips, arguing that Guatemala is treating him as if he were "guilty until proven innocent." The adoptions of two of the Casa Quivira children, in fact, were found to be legal, and those infants have since left for the U.S. But the rest have been removed to other private facilities, and nine were hospitalized with lung problems and other sicknesses.

For Ann Roth, the situation is "horrific. We are praying as hard as we can for these babies." So is Ana Escobar. None of the Casa Quivira children - their names, dates of birth and arrival at the home pinned to their crib headboards - turned out to be Esther. But "I won't give up until I find my daughter," says Escobar. "There are a lot of people who adopt children without really knowing if the mother wanted to give them up or if they were stolen. Without knowing if the mother is suffering."

View this article on [url]Time.com[/url]

[Len8]

I think Korean families are paid a stipend if they take in an adoptee. All the publicity about korean families adopting Korean orphans is bull. I think the publicity about there being fewer adoptees avilable for overseas adoption is a publicity stunt to cover their shame.

There are three social welfare organizations that handle Korean adoptees, namely "Holt, Eastern Child welfare, and Korean Social Welfare". Holt is still going strong, and is the primary exporter of babies to Europe. Eastern dosen't send babies with escorts anymore. The adopting parents come to Korea instead. The Korean Social Welfare still exports babies. It's seasonal as well. There are always a lot of babies in the winter, which means they were concieved around the previous December. Could be something to do with the warm comfort of a motel as a place to hang out, rather than to walk around the streets. Most of the babies are between 3 and 4 months when they are adopted.

Those going to the U.S incidently are U.S citizens. How that is done sure beats me. I have secorted babies to New York, and they just hand the documents about who they are and permits and stuff nonchalantly without a care in the world. Didn't know what the documents were until I got to New York where I saw an attached passport stapled to all the papers being pulled out of the bag by immigration. Couldn't believe it. What if I had misplaced the bag. Geeze.

I'd be curious to know how those agencies get the orphans as well. Wonder if any are found in bags in railway stations.

[little mixed girl]

...i don't think it has anything to do with adoptees preferring to live in an orphanage, or rejecting their birth parents...

just think about it, if you don't look like your parents, people stare, ask questions, make ignorant comments.

some of the adoptive parents have no idea about racism and if the kid is having issues at school they might wash over it...
or the parent might tell them to "get over it".

i heard that some adoptions that were taking place in the 50s-70s, had agencies telling parents to make their kids as american as possible.
they were supposed to know nothing of the country that they were born in.

if you were raised in that type of environment, wouldn't you have questions that you want answered?

also, there are some pretty racist adoptive parents.
i know two girls who were adopted from korea, and both of them say that their white adoptive parents say some of the most racist things about blacks and hispanics...sometimes asians too.

food for thought.