By Daum Kim
SEOUL, Oct 7 (Reuters) – A South Korean pastor who runs a
“baby box” where mothers can leave unwanted infants has seen a
sharp increase in the number of newborns being left there
because, the pastor says, of a new law aimed at protecting the
rights of children.
South Korea is trying to shed a reputation of being a source
of babies for adoption by people abroad. It is encouraging
domestic adoption and tightening up the process of a child’s
transfer from birth mother to adoptive parents.
The law that took effect in August is aimed at ensuring
adoption is more transparent and makes it mandatory for parents
to register newborns if they want to give them up.
But the regulation aimed at seeing more thorough records are
kept, though well intentioned, has sparked a surge of
undocumented babies being abandoned, said Pastor Lee Jong-rak.
“If you look at the letters that mothers leave with their
babies, they say they have nowhere to go, and it’s because of
the new law,” Lee told Reuters.
Lee, who opened his “baby box” for unwanted infants three
years ago, said he had seen the number being left there shoot up
from an average of five a month to 10 in August and 14 in
September.
Despite the new law, Lee said he never forced mothers to
provide information about the babies they leave in the box,
built into the wall of his church in Nangok, a tough
working-class neighbourhood in the capital, Seoul.
Many of the babies abandoned in the box have physical or
mental disabilities. Lee has adopted 10 of them himself and is
in the process of adopting four more.
On a recent sunny afternoon, a bell rang in his church to
signal a new baby had been left in the box, a boy about two
weeks old wrapped in a blanket.
“In the past, babies used to be abandoned at night but
nowadays babies are abandoned in the daytime as well,” Lee said
with a sigh.
At the moment, Lee is looking after 20 children, aged
between 2 and 26, in his cramped two-storey house. Among them,
his own son.
But a Ministry of Health and Welfare official questioned
Lee’s assertion that the new law had led to more babies being
dropped in the box.
“It’s hard to say there’s a specific causal relationship
between the law and babies being abandoned in the box,” said the
official, who declined to be identified.
“The sudden surge of the babies could be due to many
reasons,” said the official.
Lee has been criticised by some people who say his box
encourages desperate mothers to give up their babies. But Lee
says he will not close the box until he was sure the government
can offer adequate protection for abandoned babies.
(Editing by Jack Kim)
