History of Adoption in Korea
Chapter 4
A Leap into Professional Adoption Projects and Child Services
Trend of Domestic and Intercountry Adoption
· The number of adopted children fluctuated according to the government's adoption policy, but overall the number reached 91,000 in the 1980s with an annual average of 9,182 adopted domestically and abroad
· The number of domestic adoptions was approximately 26,000 (28.86%) and the annual average was 2,650 (`81~`90)
· The number of international adoptions was approximately 65,000 (71.14%) and the annual average was 6,532 (`81~`90)
Major Events
1981 Fully opened intercountry adoption to increase emigration and activate people-to-people diplomacy
1989 Established a domestic adoption agency, Holy Family Child Adoption Center
Planned to completely stop intercountry adoption by 1996 through the phased reduction project
Opening Intercountry Adoption, as a way to Increase Immigration and Activate People-to-People Diplomacy
In the 1980s, the government decided to fully open intercountry adoption to increase immigration and activate people-to-people diplomacy, withdrawing the quota system and the intercountry adoption suspension plan that had been carried out to stimulate domestic adoption. With the opening of intercounty adoption, the number of children adopted to overseas homes rapidly increased, which led to competition among adoption agencies to secure a sufficient number of prospective adoptive children.
However, not long after the announcement of the full opening, the government gave an administrative instruction to refrain from carrying out intercountry adoption around the 1986 Seoul Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, considering international attention to this issue.
These measures by the government did not fully regulate international adoption but were rather implemented occasionally when they might give a negative perception overseas.
Hosting the Olympic Games and the Change of the Adoption Policy
With the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, many countries around the world started to show interest in Korea. In the meantime, the foreign press focused on the increasing number of children adopted overseas and the continued overseas adoption despite Korea's eye-opening economic growth and the hosting of the Olympic Games. They pointed out that Korea was "the world's top orphan exporter," criticizing that Korean children given up by single mothers made up 60% of foreign children sent to the U.S. in the form of adoption, the number of which exceeded 6,000 a year.
Influenced by the foreign press, the media in Korea started to raise the issue of intercountry adoption, which increased social attention. Accordingly, the government decided to encourage domestic adoption by establishing the Adoption Project Improvement Guideline in June 1989. According to the guideline, the government intended to reduce intercountry adoption every year and eventually ban it except for mixed-race children or disabled children by 1996. However, this plan was withdrawn in 1995 due to a lack of domestic adoption.
The Establishment of the Domestic Adoption Agency, Holy Family Child Adoption Center
Holy Family Child Adoption Center is an agency exclusively for domestic adoption established on May 11th, 1989, after the 24th Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988, as a project of the International Eucharistic Congress with the belief that Korean children must be raised by Koreans. While the four previous adoption agencies were launched with the purpose of overseas adoption, this agency has great significance in that it was launched as an exclusive domestic adoption agency.