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From Korea JoongAng Daily, July 07, 2011
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2938514
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A new era for adoption
On June 29, the National Assembly revised the law governing international adoptions and some domestic adoptions, giving adoptees the right to access their adoption information and showing its commitment to family preservation as the best way to protect children’s rights.
This shift towards family preservation is shown by the name change of the standing law from “The Special Act Relating to the Promotion and Procedure of Adoption” to “The Special Act Relating to Adoption.” The bill marks the end of an era in which adoption was equated with the best interests of a child versus empowering the child’s family of origin.
Bill #1812414 was sponsored by the government and approved with 188 yeas, zero nays and four abstentions after passing constitutional, legislative and committee review. This process of law reform was first put into play in 2008 when the Ministry of Health and Welfare commissioned an exploratory advisory group of adoption agency workers, social workers and academics to begin looking into revising the standing law on adoption as a preparatory step towards ratifying the Hague Adoption Convention. The problem with this initial government-appointed group was that it failed to consult single parents, birth family members and adoptees - the very persons who have been directly affected by the standing law.

From Korea JoongAng Daily, July 01, 2011
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2938312
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Korea passes law to change adoption policy
Bill strengthens oversight, makes birth registration mandatory
“아이 포기 숙고하세요”…입양숙려제 도입
Korea has just passed historic legislation that is likely to change the way adoption in the country is practiced.

From Groove Magazine, June 2011
http://issuu.com/dthw8s/docs/groovekorea
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Adoption Scapegoats: Single Moms
What do you say to a man that puts blame on 'promiscuous women'?
By Jenny Na
Adoption from Korea continues today because single mothers are promiscuous.

http://www.thenation.com/print/article/160096/evangelical-adoption-crusade
from The Nation
The Evangelical Adoption Crusade
Kathryn Joyce | April 21, 2011
Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

In late March Craig Juntunen told a group of Christian adoption advocates assembled at a Chandler, Arizona, home about his plans to increase international adoptions fivefold. Just over a year before, the world had been riveted by the saga of Laura Silsby, the American missionary arrested while trying to transport Haitian children across the Dominican border. But the lessons of that scandal seemed far from Juntunen’s mind as he described his “crusade to create a culture of adoption” by simplifying adoption’s labyrinthine ethical complexities to their emotional core. Juntunen, a former pro football quarterback and the adoptive father of three Haitian children, has emerged as a somewhat rogue figure in the adoption world since he recently founded an unorthodox nonprofit, Both Ends Burning. He has commissioned a documentary about desperate orphans in teeming institutions, Wrongfully Detained, and proposed a “clearinghouse model” that will raise the number of children adopted into US families to more than 50,000 per year.

“백인이 되고 싶었다” 한국계 미 입양아 성장기 정체성 혼란
구정은기자 [email protected]
경향신문
입력 : 2009-11-10 18:08:04ㅣ수정 :
미 국 내 해외 입양아들 가운데 큰 비중을 차지하는 한국계 입양아 대부분이 성장기에 정체성 혼란을 느끼는 것으로 조사됐다. 뉴욕타임스는 9일 입양아들이 유년기와 청소년기에 정체성 혼란을 느끼고 있는 것으로 나타났다는 조사 결과와 함께 한인 입양아들의 고민과 아픔을 전하는 기사를 실었다.
플로리다주 포트로더데일에서 고교 교사로 일하는 한국계 입양아 출신 조엘 밸런타인(35)은 3살 때인 1977년 백인 가정에 입양됐다. 백인들 속에서 자라난 그는 “인종적 정체성의 고민을 얘기하고 싶어도 자칫 양부모의 고마움을 모르는 것으로 비칠까봐 말할 수가 없었다”고 털어놨다.
한국전쟁 직후부터 2007년까지 미국으로 입양된 한국계는 16만명으로 미국 내 전체 한인 인구의 10%를 차지한다. 입양아들은 백인들에게 둘러싸여 있는 경우가 대부분이어서 인종적 혼란을 더욱 크게 느낀다. 61년 미국에 입양된 김은미 영(46)이라는 여성은 “어릴 때 양아버지가 한국과 관련된 선물을 사주면 모두 무시했고, 청소년기에도 백인 남자아이들만 사귀었다”면서 “서른이 넘어 나의 정체성을 깨닫고 생모에 대한 생각을 하게 되면서 큰 혼란을 겪었다”고 말했다.

한인입양아 “백인이고 싶었다”
NYT “美 1세대 입양아 78% 인종정체성 혼란”
뉴시스 [email protected]
2009년 11월 11일 (수)
뉴욕타임스는 입양 후 인종적 정체성의 혼란을 느끼는 사례에 관한 보고서가 9일 공개됐다면서 한국 출신의 1세대 입양아 중 78%가 그들을 백인으로 인식하거나 어렸을 때 백인이기를 바랬던 것으로 나타났다고 전했다.
60%는 중학교에 들어간 후 자신의 인종적 정체성을 느끼게 됐다고 응답했고 61%는 성인이 돼 한국을 여행을 여행하며 모국의 문화를 체험하고 친부모를 찾는 노력을 기울였다고 말했다.
많 은 한국 입양아들은 대부분 백인 이웃들이 주변에 있는 환경에서 자랐다. 어렸을 때 인종적 차별을 당하고 드물게는 교사로부터 차별받는 일도 있었다. 또한 입양아 중 소수만이 한인들과 어울릴 때 환영받는 느낌을 가졌다고 답한 것으로 나타났다.

Adopted From Korea and in Search of Identity
By RON NIXON
The New York Times
November 8, 2009
*See below for a link to the related study done by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute*
As a child, Kim Eun Mi Young hated being different.
When her father brought home toys, a record and a picture book on South Korea, the country from which she was adopted in 1961, she ignored them.

Unwed mothers need aid
Editorial from the JoongAng (한국어 밑에 있습니다)
November 14, 2009
The New York Times earlier this week carried a feature on the conflicts and struggles adoptees from South Korea endure while growing up in American families in a study of trans-racial adoptions. The study on first-generation children adopted from South Korea showed most have suffered an identity crisis either from racial discrimination or coming to terms with their ethnic origin. In fact, 78 percent had considered themselves to be white or had wanted to be white when they were children.
Some 163,000 children from South Korea have found adopted parents in other countries, mostly in the United States, between 1953 and last year. Ethnic South Koreans make up the largest group of trans-racial adoptees in the U.S.
The country has been trying to shake off the dishonor of being one of the largest “exporters of orphans.” Yet abandoned babies are still carried off overseas in search of families that want them. Most of the babies put up for adoption come from single mothers. Of 1,250 children adopted by foreign families last year, 90 percent were born to single women. Children continue to be put up for adoption because our society does not approve of unmarried women raising a child on their own. The same paper last month pointed out that most single women give up babies because Korean society eyes them almost like criminals. Adoptees and their adoptive parents instead of the Korean government launched a campaign in Korea to help single mothers keep their children.
It is a shame Asia’s third largest economy and a member of the G-20 still depends on others to help out an underprivileged group of its people.

Adoption reform in South Korea as though children mattered
Adoptees and unwed mothers work with DP lawmakers to author a parallel bill intended to ensure a responsible legislative-reform process
By Kimberly Campbell
The Hankyoreh (English edition)
기사등록 : 2009-11-16 오후 01:23:31
기사수정 : 2009-11-16 오후 01:25:59
Democratic Party (DP) Lawmaker Choi Young-hee is sponsoring a bill to amend the Special Act Relating to the Promotion and Procedure of Adoption that has been co-authored by a coalition of adoptees and public interest groups and recently submitted to the National Assembly. Efforts by this coalition comprised of the Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea (TRACK), the Adoptee Solidarity Network (ASK), KoRoot, Gong-gam, a Korean public interest lawyers’ group, and Miss Mamma Mia, the nation’s first single and unwed mothers’ organization, have been gaining the attention of press in country’s responsible for South Korea’s intercountry adoption placements, including the U.S. via the New York Times. The coalition held a public hearing on Nov. 10 at the National Assembly on their bill for adoption law reform that some anticipate would be presented for deliberation and a vote in the spring 2010 plenary session.

‘해외입양 권장하는 한국’ 보육원서 호적까지 세탁
ㆍ뿌리찾기 애로 등 부작용…입양특례법 개정 목소리
경향신문
입력 : 2009-11-11 01:38:23ㅣ수정 : 2009-11-11 09:54:24
제인 정 트렌카(37·여)는 생후 6개월 만에 4살된 언니와 함께 미국으로 입양됐다. 수년 전 한국에 와 자신의 입양기록을 확인한 그는 깜짝 놀랐다. 원래 호적인 ‘가족 호적’과 입양이 가능토록 보육원에서 조작한 ‘고아 호적’ 두 개가 있었기 때문이다.
고아 호적엔 생년월일·본적 등이 모두 가족 호적과 다르게 기재돼 있었다. 심지어 입양지마저 ‘화란(네덜란드)’으로 적혀 있었다. 최근 만나게 된 친모에게 들은 개인사와 입양기관에서 입양 부모에게 제시한 정보도 판이했다. 친모는 그를 보육원에 보냈다고 했지만, 입양 부모가 받은 서류에는 친모가 낳고 바로 버린 것으로 기록됐다. 건강 상태도 허위 정보가 제공됐다. 트렌카는 “서류에는 내가 ‘건강하며 어떤 의료적 문제나 돌봄의 문제가 없다’고 돼 있었지만, 사실은 친아버지가 창 밖으로 나를 내던진 뒤 건강이 매우 악화돼 보육원에 보내졌다는 사실을 알았다”고 말했다.
한국에서 입양아의 ‘아동 세탁(child laundering)’이 빈번한 것으로 밝혀졌다. 저출산국 탈피를 부르짖으면서도 ‘아동 수출대국’으로 입양을 남용하고 있는 것이다. 과거 고아나 미혼모 아동 중심의 ‘입양촉진 정책’만 중점을 두고, 원가족의 유지는 뒷전인 입양특례법을 개정해야 한다는 지적이다.