| ▲ On the morning of the 13th, in the morning of the 13th, when the first trial was held against the adoptive parents who abused “Jeong In-i” for their death by 16 months of age, Ahn Mo, her adoptive wife, leaves the court after the trial was completed at the Southern District Court in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul. | |
| Ⓒ Joint coverage photo | |
☞ Previous article: [인터뷰 ③] “Separation of children and birth parents, the state should consider and take charge”
-What are some of the problems of private adoption institutions in which profits are inevitably prioritized over children’s happiness?
“One of the most well-known private adoption agencies’ practice of child acceptance is to practice the way the mother is told,’Never show the child immediately after birth. Do not hug or breastfeed.’ Avoid this formation, if you show the child to your mother, you will not be sent for adoption.
Adoption agencies are best aware that frequent change of state caregivers poses serious harm to children. Nevertheless, the adoption agency wants to cut off the way the child will return to his mother. In addition, when there is no other way except for adoption, when the child is entrusted to the protection of the adoption agency and the mother decides to raise the child and wants to bring the child back, they often charge for the cost of raising the child, and the poor mother eventually gives up the child because it cannot provide money. There are also not a few.
There is an anecdote that the mother, who heard the news that the father who was raising the child, entrusted the child to the adoption agency, did not show it even if she asked to see the child at least once. There was also a report from the birth mother that the birth mother of the child sent for adoption did not provide the whereabouts of the child even though she wanted to know whether the child was raised safely with the adopted parent or if it was well protected. In addition, even if an accident occurs in the process of protecting a child, the fact is not informed to the mother. The adoption agency’s “child protection” is such a stubborn “cheolongseong”. It is a system in which children are the financial interests of the adoption agency and, in the end, the financial interests cannot be abandoned. Now it has to be changed. Adoption agencies should not provide’child protection’.
This permitting private adoption agencies to separate, take over and protect children is the darkest aspect of Korean adoption history in 68 years. If the state wants to properly reconstruct the’Jung-in-i case’, the state must separate, take over and protect children through the state’s direct affairs, that is, through the public system. That’s the right path to child protection. European countries also perform social services of child protection entirely in public systems. There is no other way.”
-How do you evaluate the measures suggested by the Ministry of Health and Welfare after the’Jeong-in-i incident’?
“After the’Jeong In-i incident’, public opinion is as a huge wildfire, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare will create a structure in which the state intervenes more in the alliance between adopted children and adoptive parents, but increases support for private adoption agencies and the discovery of adopted children is private. It is coming out with a daunting alternative to outsource it to an adoption agency, a ridiculous measure to reward the agency that should be punished.
In the past, the institution that actively discovered children was the institution that actively discovered children, which operated lobby funds to obtain children in the obstetrics and gynecological hospital, received children from sibling welfare support, and even sent missing children for adoption. This is the response of the Ministry of Health and Welfare to Jeong In’s death. It is no different from saying that they will allow’Chul Ongseong’ to the adoption agency again.
Private adoption agencies were obligated to provide information on children protected by the agency to the National Agency for the Rights of the Child, but they have never done so. This response means that the Ministry of Health and Welfare has no intention of preventing the recurrence of death, such as Jeong In-i’s death, and it seems to pass over a wall while waiting for the public opinion to calm down, eventually taking over and protecting the child from a private adoption agency. It’s no other than talking about leaving the work done.”
Adopted children die every year.
-Among the public officials in charge of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, there are complaining about whether there is no alternative to children separated from the mother unless a specialized private adoption agency does it?
“There is no alternative, it is not motivated. The public officials are just looking at the private adoption agency. Child welfare scholars and experts say that it is not impossible to take over, separate and protect children even with the current government system. I am speaking with the same sex.
The public system of the family consignment system is in operation in 17 metropolitan autonomous regions and cities nationwide. In the case of in-depth counseling at the local government’s child protection system counter and providing child-rearing support, if separation becomes unavoidable, the next step is to receive and protect these children from the family entrustment system, while protecting the children from the public system according to the child’s best interests You can review your protection arrangements. Several experts argue that by carefully examining whether returning to the original family is the answer, short-term home placement is the solution, or domestic adoption placement is the solution, it can provide a place for the next stage of life for children.
There is one point to consider here: The mother (father), who is usually in trouble with raising a child, is often young and lacks the resources for parenting, as well as the fact that even her own body is in an inextricable situation. Some women may have to go back to street life after leaving the child. Even to these women, the state should be able to reach out a hand of compassion and support. It is also not impossible to do this. Like Aeranwon in Seoul, there are houses for unwed mothers in every metropolitan city, and there are self-support facilities for single mothers. Of course, the best thing is home support.
In addition, there is news that the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family will soon reorganize the branches of the Health and Family Promotion Agency scattered across the country into family centers. This family center will function as a counseling center for women in crisis, and it is presumed that it will be operated in close connection with shelters for women driven into domestic violence or sexually assaulted women. In addition to home support for women who are in crisis of pregnancy and childbirth, emergency temporary facility protection and counseling and support functions can be added in case of crisis.
The local government’s dedicated child protection or social service public affairs system, the family foster care system, and the family center are organically combined, so that children separated from their parents are accepted into the family foster care system operated by the public. It seems that there is nothing that should not be done in connection with support and protection. The segregation, takeover and protection of children should be handled entirely by the state’s public system.”
-What is the last thing you want to say about’Jeong-in’?
“In the realm of adoption practice, adopted children, adopted parents, and birth mothers (father) are referred to as three adoptees. Adoption is the key parties that penetrate their lives. The’Jeong In-i case’ is a miserable operation of the adoption system, making the three adoptees acute Adoption, which is a way to protect the welfare and human rights of children, is one of the alternative parenting systems that promises a solution to the difficulties and happiness to these adoptees, and the system malfunctions in the field of this practice. The child Jung In-yi died a terrible death at the age of 16 months.
Adopted mothers should have avoided knowing that they are not qualified, but they must recklessly choose the arduous task of fostering adoption and spend at least 10 years in the cages of the prison. The adoptive wife may also be sentenced to prison. The only daughter of this family, who is the only child, is driven to the tragedy of having to live a childhood life without parents.
How is Jungin’s real mother? Unwanted pregnancy and childbirth itself must have been traumatized, but with the hope of giving the child a better life as the last exit, he laid down the child with the promise of helping the child grow in a better family. . But what has returned is the betrayal of the child’s death. Wouldn’t it be driven by a deep self-condemnation and trauma. The case reveals that failure in adoption and follow-up management can lead to a devastating defeat for three adoptees. It is a tragedy that calls for repentance and apology of all the people involved who have shouted’Happiness of three adoptees’.
Hyun-soo, who was sent for adoption to the United States in 2014, was beaten by her adoptive father and died. In 2014, Sarang-i, an adopted child in Ulsan, was beaten to death by her wool. In 2016, Eunbi of Daegu died, and in the same year, the adopted child of Pocheon was beaten to death by adopted parents, and the body was scattered on the mountain. After 2016, several more adopted children have died of neglect and abuse. Almost every year adopted children died. And he mourns and angers Jeong-in, who died in 2020, asking what alternatives are there. Who we are Who should be.”
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