Social Context
Korean traditional society places significant weight on paternal family ties, bloodlines, and purity of ‘race’. Children of mixed race or those without fathers are not easily accepted in Korean society (Jang, 1998). Many families would go through excessive and expensive procedures such as surrogacy or in vitro fertilization to ensure that their offspring are at least related than to accept a child of a complete stranger into their family. Indeed, it was the case until recently that Korean citizenship was directly tied to family bloodline. Children not a part of a Korean family (i.e., orphans) were not legal citizens of Korea. Another reason is the stigma of adoption. Ninety-five percent of families who do adopt choose babies less than a month old so that they can pass them off as their natural born offspring, overlooking older adoptable children (Yun, Korea Times, 1997).
In addition, most Western countries started to face a shortage of healthy, domestic babies available for adoption in this period, as a result of social welfare programs, legalized abortions and use of contraception. Many Western couples became open to the idea of adopting children from abroad.
This was the start of a popular trend which is still present today, as the demand for babies by infertile, upper- and middle class couples in the West is rising (Jang, 1998). The procedure of international adoption is today a growing and often favoured method for couples to build their families and new countries are constantly opening up for international adoption, both as sending and receiving countries. However, recent adoption “scandals” have caused some countries, like Russia, to reduce the number of children being adopted by U.S families. A mother from Tennessee adopted a boy from Russia and was misled about the boy’s mental conditions. She sent him on a plane back to Russia, causing upheaval. This led to an agreement between the U.S and Russia to reduce the number of children being sent to the U.S.
Read more about this topic: International Adoption Of South Korean Children
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