The horrific discovery of dozens of dead babies who had never been registered by their parents has sparked an agony of soul-searching across Korea. One reason they fell below the radar may be that children are still more or less considered the property of their parents.
Even until the 1970s, many Korean babies were registered one or two years after birth because of a high infant mortality rate often caused by diseases like typhoid. The infant mortality rate in Korea was then 45 per 1,000, compared to just 2.4 per 1,000 today.
Noh Hye-ryun at Soongsil University said, “Children are still not considered independent beings in Korean society but instead the property or part of their parents. Infants’ rights tend to be disregarded.”
A key example of this mentality is the light punishment for murdering a child. A person who kills his or her own child out of shame faces only a maximum 10-year prison sentence under a law created in 1953 and never revised.
/Yonhap
Not only is the punishment lighter than the penalty for other types of murder, many cases only lead to suspended sentences. Seung Jae-hyun at the Korea Institute of Criminology said, “If a girl gives birth to a child out of wedlock, even the head of the family is condoned to a certain degree if he forces her to abort the baby to hide the shame. This is an anachronistic law that must be scrapped.”
Due to this mentality, the government also left it up to parents to register the births of their children, and while the state was looking the other way, babies disappeared from the books and many ended up dead.
In contrast, in the U.S., U.K., Germany and other advanced countries government workers visit hospitals to check the birth of babies and register them.
“Germany has around 1,300 help centers to offer advice and support for single mothers. Korea should care for mothers and babies during pregnancy and childbirth, ” said Jeong Jae-hoon at Seoul Women’s University. “There should be support available for single women and girls who become pregnant on whether to raise their child or put it up for adoption so that children do not fall through the cracks.”
But other experts say unmarried women should be allowed to give birth anonymously. Kim Yoon-shin at Chosun University analyzed 20 cases of infanticide from 2013 to 2021 and found that the most common reason was fear of others finding out about their pregnancy.”
Meanwhile the government has stepped up a search for 2,123 babies born between 2015 to 2022 who were recorded in hospitals but whose parents never registered them. Police are now urgently looking for almost 1,000 of them and the number of babies found dead has risen to 34.
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