SUBMISSION FOR THE LOIs

ON THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Submitted by

Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community (TRACK)*

*Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community (TRACK) is a Korean civil society organization that advocates for the full knowledge of past and present Korean adoption practices to protect the human rights of adult adoptees, children, and families. TRACK is a member of Child Rights Connect, the UBR Working Group, and Make Mothers Matter.

Article 18 (2) – Birth registration

  1. The current birth registration system of the Republic of Korea (ROK) is in reality a voluntary birth “reporting” system, whereby parents must register their child at a city district office within 30 days after the child's birth.[1]The birth certificate given at the hospital (sometimes without the name of the child) is not a state or legal document. This issue is especially relevant as the number of children with disabilities available for adoption has increased. Infants, particularlythose with disabilities and/or those born to unwed mothers, may be reported as the biological children of adopters. This may happen when the adoption is arranged by a delivering doctor or when an adoption agency arranges the adoption because parents may write down whatever they want on the birth “reporting” form at the city office. Moreover, a birth certificate is not required for the voluntary report at the city office, which is the legal document that provides future identification for the child. This voluntary family reporting system is a vestige of the past, when home births were common.[2]
  2. It should also be noted that birth registration is not practicably or consistently available for persons in refugee, asylum-seeking or irregular migration situations. With an estimated 17,000 unregistered children born to undocumented migrants living in the ROK, this lack of registration prevents them from obtaining health care, leaving those with disabilities especially vulnerable.[3]
  3. Because children in the ROK are voluntarily registered, and this is not done immediately after birth, children with disabilities suffer the high risk of their documents beingfalsified for adoption, whether by an “orphan registration” that shows a single child as the only member of her/his family (which was used in the past to send most adoptees overseas), or on a domestic birth registration that makes the child appear to be the biological child of non-biological adopters.[4]
  4. In 2011, the Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern, recommending that the ROK, in accordance with Article 7, ensure that all children are registered and that registration is verified to ensure it accurately indicates the biological parents.[5]
  5. These concerns were repeated in 2012 in the UN Universal Periodic Review when nine states issued recommendations for the ROK to revise its birth registration to ensure immediate birth registration for all children.[6]

Suggestions for the LOIs

What measures are taken to monitor and prevent falsified birth registration?

What measures are taken to register refugee and migrant children with disabilities?

Article 23 – Abandonment of children with disabilities

  1. Article 272 of the Criminal Act criminalizes the abandonment of children.[7]Despite this, a baby boxy (also known as a “hatch”) has been operating in Seoul since 2009. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has opposed such mechanisms for violating the rights of the child and strongly urging State Parties to end such practices.[8] However, the ROK Government has yet to enforce its domestic law and international obligations by ending this program.
  2. According to statistics from the facility operating the baby box[9], the number of children with disabilities abandoned in the baby box is:

2010 – 2 out of 4 children had disabilities

2011 – 11 out of 37 children had disabilities

2012 – 8 out of 71 children had disabilities

2013 – 18 out of 184 children had disabilities

  1. The increase in abandonment of children without disabilities in 2012 and 2013 can be attributed to the media inaccurately informing the public that the Special Adoption Law, which went into effect in August 2012, made birth registration mandatory.[10] This led many unmarried mothers to abandon their babies in the baby box to avoid discrimination. Therefore, taking this factor into account and based on the statistics before 2012, the number of children with disabilities abandoned in the hatch is significant (50% in 2010 and 30% in 2011).

Suggestions for the LOIs

What happens to children with disabilities abandoned in the baby hatch?

What measures are beingtaken to investigate the root causes of abandonment of children with disabilities?

[1]A/HRC/WG.6/14/KOR/3, para 55

[2] Kim, C. (2013, Nov. 8). Research on Birth Registration: Findings and Recommendations. Presentation given at 2013 Conference on Statelessness and Birth Registration, Seoul, Korea.

[3] Minority Rights Group International. (2013). State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous People 2013 - South Korea. Retrieved March 23, 2014, from also refer to Save the Children Korea's OHCHR submission on birth registration at

[4] A/HRC/WG.6/14/KOR/3, para 55

[5] Para. 37, CRC/C/KOR/CO/3-4

[6]Para 124.29 A/HRC/22/10

[7] Article 272 (Abandoning Baby) of the Criminal Act states, "A lineal ascendant who abandons a baby in order to avoid disgrace or for fear of not being able to bring the baby up or for some other extenuating motives, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than two years or by a fine not exceeding three million won." (Amended by Act. No. 5057, Dec. 29, 1995).

[8] Para. 50, CRC/C/CZE/CO/3-4; Para. 31, CRC/C/DEU/CO/3-4; Para. 23, CRC/C/LTU/CO/3-4

[9] Morrison, S. (2013). Baby Box Statistics. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from

[10]Birth registration is covered by the Family Registration Act, not the Special Adoption Law. Refer to: Kim, Soo-jung. (2013). The Importance of the Birth Registration System. Paper presented at the The 3rd Single Moms’ Day International Conference, National Assembly Meeting Hall.