Do you know what day May 11 is? The day is Adoption Day. The reason that May 11 was appointed as Adoption¡¯s Day follows, ¡°As a family(1) adopts child(1), the family is reborn(1+1).¡± The government has endeavored to break free of the disgraceful title ¡°Baby exporting country¡± by improving adoption system. However, the system alone is not enough in Korea to make new families through adoption.
The adoption system needs fundamental change!
The total of Korean adopted children was 2652 in 2007 according to the statistical office. Among them, 1388 children were adopted domestically, which is little over 50% of the total. It is encouraging in comparison with the high rate of international adoptions in the past. However, if fundamental change isn¡¯t done in the adoption system, the appreciation of adoptions will not be changed. If a child¡¯s real parents exercise parental rights, foster parents can¡¯t pass on the family name under the present system. It means a different family name for foster parents and children. Therefore, it naturally shows the adoptive child is not the foster parents¡¯ real child, which is the reason adoptions are not more common.
Also, closed adoption is general in Korea. Parents, who want to adopt, worry about ridicule and the distinction that the adoptive child will experience. Covering the adoption fact, some foster parents want to pretend that adoptive child is their real child. Most adoptions are not open because of these reasons, so it makes for illegal private adoption and doesn¡¯t let an adoption culture revitalize. Besides these things, the Korean adoption system is not revitalized due to not enough support finances and problems in the adoption process.
Adoption family is a new type of family
Being a diversified society, Korea is producing various type of families, like the single daddy, single mom and unmarried mother. An adoption family is also developing as a new type of family. To help settle the adoption family in society, financial support and improvement of the system are important. The government should provide some of the expense of bringing up the child, and the adoption organizations need control in the system. Also, taking care of the family is essential after adopting for adoptive children and their family to be able to adjust in society. To keep this family happy, the government should have on going interest and the organizations associated to the adoption need to care for them. Most of all, making people interested in the adoption is important to revitalize it.