韓国の里子養育の歴史と動向

Foster Care Movement in Korea

カン・スンウォン博士

（韓国里子養育父母協会会長、韓信大学教授）

Dr. Kang, Soon-Won

(President, KFCA. Professor of Hanshin University)

Introduction

The foster care system in Korea has undergone rapid transition over the last period. Even though foster care seems to be an idea imported from Western countries, it is actually quite integrated in the Korean traditional way of life as an option of alternative care. In the late 1990s, foster care was a prevalent alternative care option in Korean society, enjoying an environment conducive to the promotion of child rights in Korea due to the following reasons:

1) ongoing advocacy of the child welfare coalitions;

2) the election of two successive presidents in Korea with a firm human rights orientation;

3) the government’s desire to engender the emergence of a participant social welfare state and

4) the availability of adequate financial resources to support the expansion of social welfare in Korea; (Kim, J .W., 2004).

Along with these changes, as well as the increase in the awareness of child rights in the international community, proposals were made that the child-related policy in Korea should also be newly examined and developed from the perspective of child rights. Simultaneously, a child policy should be developed from the perspective of the best interests for the child, considering the child as an independent human being instead of just a miniature of an adult, and reflecting the voices of the child. In that context, it is the opinion of the Korea Foster Care Association that the most family-friendly care that protects the rights of the children without parental care, as well as cares for the children from a child’s perspective instead of an adult’s or child institution’s is the orientation of foster care (Kang, Soon-Won, 2005).

This paper is focused on the family foster care movement for displaced children from the perspective of the best interest of a child in the Korean context.

Why Foster Care in Korea?

The Korean Foster Care Association (KFCA)is a Non Government Organization founded in Plenary Session II : Child Protection Activities of Korean Civil Organizations 1998 to provide family foster care for children in need separated from their biological family.　KFCA advocates foster care movement as an alternative care for children in need, rather than institutionalized care by civil human rights organizations.

Firstly, foster care is a partnership between foster care givers, agencies, and individuals who have the responsibility for the children and young people who cannot live with their biological family according to the UN CRC article 20. Partners include social workers, placement agencies, birth parents, foster children and young people, and other adults and agencies that contribute to the stability and development of foster children. Institutionalized care for children has been dismissed for decades in Western countries in favor of foster care that matches a family-like environment as much as possible, because all children have the right to live in a home environment.

Concerning this matter, Article 20 of the CRC notes the following concerning children deprived of their family environment:

1. A child temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment, or in whose own best interests cannot be allowed to remain in that environment, shall be entitled to special protection and assistance provided by the State.

2. States Parties shall in accordance with their national laws ensure alternative care for such a child.

3. Such care could include, inter alia, foster placement, kafalah of Islamic law, adoption or if necessary placement in suitable institutions for the care of children. When considering solutions, due regard shall be paid to the desirability of continuity in a child's upbringing and to the child's ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background.

According to the CRC article 20, item 3, alternative care for the child in need is possible in foster care, adoption, and in institutions, and there must be no discrimination in any form due to the social background of a child. One notable point is the order in which the types of alternative care are listed in UN CRC. It is inevitable that the opinions of the child scholars coming from the advanced countries who drafted the Convention are reflected, but it can be seen that foster care as an alternative reflects the basic rights to survival, protection, development, and participation from the perspective of the best interest of a child.(George &Oudenhoven,2002). In Korea, the stage has been reached for serious transition into foster care, though traditionally, it has been very difficult to implement due to the large numbers of war orphans and the lack of family-friendly child policies during the postwar economic growth policies, as well as my-family-centered way of life.

KFCA advocates not only foster care activity, but also principles of the basic rights of the mentioned above. Following such logic, acting in ‘the best interests of the child’ should be synonymous with offering care alternatives that promote the sort of nurturing and attachment opportunities that the child would have received from his or her family of origin. The generally accepted models that have evolved in order to achieve this desirable outcome are family based foster care and kinship care.

Secondly, KFCA addresses the existence of a traditional community care practice in Korean history, offered collectively in the community, for children who have been separated from their biological parents due to family problems. Instead of the birth parents of those children in need, neighbors used to look after them as the alternative parents similar to the foster parent in Western terms in our 5,000-year history. Traditionally Confucianism stated that the family is the central unit in society. As such, it is responsible for the economic roles of production, consumption as well as the education and socialization of children and family members as a whole, guided by ethical and moral principles. It seemed to be agricultural ethos before the rapid modernization in the 1970s. Kinship care is also quite popular in our communal tradition. Uncles, aunts, and sometimes grandparents used to give alternative parenting during the absence of their birth parents. This kind of alternative family care, regarded as a symbol of encouragement for the culture of life in an extended family, up until the end of traditional values presently. The Korean government, also based on this same awareness, is promoting equal support of children staying with grandparents and child-headed families. Thus KFCA tried to work together with foster children, foster carers, and the community in general in order to share the same sense of family and opportunities for a happy and sustainable life.

Thirdly, in the process of democratization of the Korean society, child policy was apriority of government policy and deinstitutionalization of the child care and individualized care was the core of child protection for the sustainability of family. In the beginning KFCA was confronted with strong resistance from child institutions. These institutions received financial support per child from the government. However, abandoned children staying at child institutions face severe discrimination, and as a result they are much more likely to become involved in crime as adults. KFCA believes that such discrimination is against the principles and intent of the UN Charter on the Right of the Child, but institutionalized children used had a negative stigma from the community and his or her friends. KFCA shares the view that institutions are now only used in instances where a family would not be able to cope with the special demands of the children, and the Korean government supports this transition of child care. In the Forum for the Implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, it was also concluded that the state is active in the transition to foster care, but the supportive infrastructure is still weak. Subsequently, all related parties must work together at this crucial stage (KOCCO, 2006).

Korean Foster Care: Historical review

Korea has undergone dramatic shifts in social conditions, from a feudal Confucian one, to the very developed democratic republic it is today. As a consequence this transition, Korea has gone through four stages since independence (S. W. Kang, 2002). As a whole, it is predicted that in relation to the Korean society’s amazing social development, the total child population will decrease, but social disintegration and divorce, among other reasons, will bring about an increase in the number of children in need (Yoon et al.,2005). The overall trend and policy regarding children in need will be described in four stages of social development.

The first stage was from 1945 to 1960, during which there was absolute chaos due to Japanese colonization and the severe war between North and South. This period called on Child welfare as a means for social salvation (Chang & Oh, 2002). The country was liberated from the Japanese colonization, it was divided into the North and South, and the Korean War broke out. The urgent task of South Korea was to build a nation state with foreign financial aid. But the Korean War in 1950 and the division of the nation reinforced hostility between the North and the South. The Cold War ideology of the dictatorial government encouraged inflexible anti-communism among the people. The government controlled and mobilized people with a state-building ideology based on nationalism. The concepts of freedom of thought and expression or human rights were seen as threats to national security while democracy was viewed as anti-communism and pro-Americanism.

There were so many abandoned children in need however the government was too poor and limited in funds to look after them. Social responsibility for them was not expected at all. More than hundreds of thousands of orphans were sent to the orphanages built by foreign Christian trustees. War orphans and emergent salvation was the priority of the child welfare policy that time. Child institutions were the most important alternative care placements for the children in need. As the number of children requiring emergency care increased, the number of child institutions without official authorization increased, leading to the 1950 Standards for ‘the Establishment of a Welfare Institution ’and the attempt to regulate child institutions however, this was impossible in practice, and the resulting problem remains today.

The second stage was from 1960 to 1980. It may be called the charitable child policy. People’s movement for democracy against the military dictatorship clashed with the government’s program of quick economic growth. From being an anti-government political struggle, the movement expanded to include the struggle for human rights with democratic civil rights for freedom. Threatened, the newly emerging power elite launched a coup d'etat in 1961 in response to the April democratic revolution. In the name of national security, the military and big business instituted emergency measures beginning in 1975 and amended the Constitution in order to suppress the people’s movement as well as human rights. The government used the schools, media and religion to foster a collective ideology for survival. It imprisoned and tortured thousands of social protesters. Still, the movement grew. Movements of students, workers and peasants supported each other. Violations of human rights were widespread.

Even though this stage was not in a war, there were still large numbers of children abandoned by their birth family and sent to child institutions. Most child institutions were too controlled by the owners and Authoritarian government to provide needy children with a happy home-like atmosphere, and enough provision with basic facilities and food. Poverty, crime, malnutrition, and institutionalization might be the symbols of authoritarian pressure upon the powerless people. As such, dictatorship in politics reflects patriarchal policy on child welfare, sending them into the controlled institutions. This period is not run by the universal welfare policy but by the charitable subsidy givers. The concept of foster care was first introduced in Korea as temporary care offered as a pre-adoptive service in the 1960’s at a time when frequency of international adoptions was beginning to rise. The concept of foster care was not even introduced on its own merit, being diverted to a role of temporary pre-adoption care. Though informal foster care, being carried on by relatives, was already widely practiced due to the particularities of Korean culture, there is no official data. In this stage, children in need were as a rule put into institutions or adopted abroad, and the problems of child institutions and the child rights violations inside were not discussed publicly.

The third stage was from 1980 to 1997. It was a period of more diversity of thought. This period is the transitional stage from the controlled one into the universalistic welfare base. After the massacre in Gwangju in 1980, people of conscience started to discuss the direction of North-South Korea relation. Anti-U.S. sentiment was so strong among many young protesters that they were imprisoned for violating the National Security Law. The slaughter of ordinary people in Gwangju, the dehumanizing detention and violence against young people, the violent suppression of human rights marches, the human rights abuses of Korean women near the U.S. military camps, all forced Koreans to reflect on their country’s situation. The enemy was not merely the government. The U.S. had for so long intervened in domestic affairs and supported the military dictatorship in order to serve its own economic interests. People’s power in the 1980s were thus anti-U.S. and pro-reunification. The alternative ideology for democratization in the 1980s was nationalism of the people towards reunification in politics and economy. While the human rights movements in the 1960s and 1970s were bourgeois movements led by the intelligentsia, the social movement in the 1980s splintered into various sectarian movements whose main goal was the abolition of the National Security Law.

In 1980s the child issue was put onto the surface of the people’s eye. Urbanization and industrialization in the 1960s and 1970s, made Korean society’s nuclear family stray far from the traditional way of life, values in anomie, and enlarged social violence in the community. Children abandoned, misled, abused and displaced were the highlight topic of the media that time. Consequently child welfare policy had to be shifted from the particularistic to the universalistic, from vulnerable children to the children in general, so that in 1981, child charity regulation finally was reformed into the Child Welfare Act. Afterwards, professional and individualized services could be provided all children to a greater degree than in the past. Nevertheless, children in need were still sent mostly to child institutions. By then foster care was considered the same as a temporary stay with the foster family before being adopted abroad. However, with the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the start of official activities by foster care associations, foster care was introduced as a family-friendly form of alternative care, with actual state support and development picking up speed after the government of president Kim, Dae Jung.

The fourth stage began in 1998 and continues today. Human rights issues surfaced, as well as social concerns such as the suffering of comfort women during the colonial regime, Korean prostitutes near U.S. military bases, undocumented low-paid foreign laborers, and violations of students' rights by teachers or peers. NGOs looked to the international network, including the UN, for solidarity. Human rights NGOs are doing much to raise the level of democracy in Korea. The child rights issue was also a main one that needed improvement on in order to reach the level of the OECD countries. Globalization is the hot subject all over Korean society. Together with political democratization, social welfare was subject to the key agenda towards the 21st century and thus the children, the old, and the vulnerable are the important social components to be looked after by the state.

The social welfare budget has risen dramatically and the welfare orientation has been changed from the charitable salvation into the productive welfare. After Korea joining CRC and OECD, child welfare policy also shifted into the global standard, the so-called deinstitutionalization of children in need. Child Welfare Act article 2, item 7 states that foster care means "to place a child requiring temporary care in the home of a family qualified to care for the child", and in article 28 endorses the installation of foster care support centers by national and local governments to carry on effective foster care service, stating that support for the endeavor is the responsibility of the government. Presently, 17 local foster care support centers, including the National Foster Care Support Center, are carrying out foster care activities. The state is supporting other attempts to transfer care to adoption or small-scale group homes, and striving to provide children with a balanced development and growth instead of merely nurturing them for survival, but such efforts are still unsatisfactory.

The Status of Foster Care in Korea

Foster care administration has been developed and a service delivery system has been set up well according to the need of foster carers and foster children. Administration responsibility is upon to the local authority, supported by the central government financially.

Figure-1 Service Delivery for Foster Care in Korea

Displaced Child

Referral to local government

office

Referral to municipal

government office

Congregate Care Referral to Foster care

Center

Adoption Long term Foster

Care

Return to biological

family

Foster Home

Social Assistance

Office

Foster Child Support

Center

(70,000won/month)

YES

NO

Basically all foster care related activities, including request, placement, conclusion, restoration, and case management are charged to the foster care support centers, but Figure-1 shows that the service delivery structure begins at the community and local district levels. (Kim, K. Y., 2005). When the community office files report, the local government receives the report, and if deemed qualified for foster care, it is submitted to the foster care support center. Foster care support center employees work together with the public employee in charge to visit the families and investigate the related background, and place the child in a proper foster care family, providing state maintenance allowances according to the foster child’s socio-economic needs. Currently, the normal child receives 70,000 won per month (about $70), but if the foster child is qualified for the Basic Living Cost Compensation, additional support is provided up to about 300,000 won a month ($300). Insurance against accident is provided starting in 2006, lessening the fear of foster carers of accidents of the foster child.

Table 1: Type of Care 1990-2005

Source: MOHW, Family and Child Care and Children’s Policy Division

Table 1 presents data on children by type of alternative care. There seems to be an overall year-to-year rise in the number of children entering congregate care. In 2005 foster care is a significant figure, because kinship care children were counted in the foster care figures. Institutionalized children still make up the largest percentage, but foster care also has risen as the second choice. In spite of the economic success achieved by the Korean society, child displacement remained high due to many social factors, such as divorce and unemployment, and they exceeded the limits allotted by the government provisions.

Table 2: Status of children in need of protection, 1990-2005

Classification Congregate

care

Foster Care

Foster home care Adoption Child-Headed Household

1990 3,734 1,134 853 -

1995 2,819 505 472 780

2000 4,453 1,406 1,337 564

2001 6,274 3,090 1,848 874

2002 4,663 2,177 2,544 673

2003 4,824 2,392 2,506 500

2004 4,782 2,212 2,100 299

2005 4,877 4,602 1,873 407

Classification Total

Types of occurrence

Abandoned Children

Out of

Wedlock Children

Lost Children

Runaway Children,

Poverty,

Abuse &

Others

Source: MOHW, Family and Child Care and Children’s Policy Division

Table 2 presents data on the causes for children who join alternative care. Because of the IMF economic crisis in 1998, the total number of children entering care since 2000 has increased significantly. Most children in need are not orphans but with biological parents. The number of children entering care as a result of marital breakdown, abuse, and poverty is expected to increase. This is the reason why Korean has to go with foster care for the purpose of returning children to their biological family, instead of other alternatives such as adoption or long-term institutional care.

Table-3 Causes for Closure of Foster Care (June 30, 2006)

Source: National Foster Care Center

According to Table-3, among the reasons for closure of foster care service, the restoration to the biological family has the largest proportion behind the closure by attainment of legal age 18. As foster care services should be intended for returning children home to their biological parents, the KFCA and other local foster care agencies attempt to return children to their biological homes if all social conditions are met. Among cases of foster care with the exception of kinship care, more than 90 % of children in foster care return to their biological families.

Unlike war orphans, more than 70 % of children in need have living biological parents, making family restoration an important task. There are rare cases in which restoration is impossible due to parental abuse or other circumstances, but more often the child’s birth parents are also suffering from social ailments, and need corresponding treatment. Work toward the rehabilitation of the child’s birth parents, with view of restoration of the family, is crucial.

1990 5,721 1,844 2,369 360 1,148 -

1995 4,576 1,227 1,285 149 1,915 -

2000 7,760 1,270 2,938 144 3,363 -

2001 12,086 717 4,897 98 728 5646

2003 10,222 628 4,457 79 595 4,463

2005 9,420 429 2,638 63 1,413 4,877

Classification Total

Restored to

Biological Family

Institutional

and Group

Home Care

Adoption Attained

Legal Age

Requested

by Foster

Family

Misc.

1,503 206 41 3 930 14 312

What’s there to be done for the Better Foster Care?

With the polarization trend of modern society, the attitudes and awareness toward a child is also tending to polarized. Due to the low birthrate, children born to middle-class families are being treated almost as little emperors. On the other hand, children who cannot receive proper care by their biological parents are being neglected defenselessly, and being a target of social prejudice, their basic rights being violated. The foster care movement, from the standpoint that only when all children are developed properly will the safety of our society be procured, must expand to a comprehensive social movement part of ‘the Civil Solidarity for Making a Society Beneficial to Others’.

In a further effort to deinstitutionalize displaced children, in 2003, the government established 17 foster care support agencies throughout the country. In 2004, the government established the National Foster Care Center to coordinate data collection, encourage the collaboration of existing agencies, and develops resources for training and support of foster parents and to promote the concept of foster care in Korea. On a positive note the emerging trend concerning children in displaced children seems to suggest that the mainstream policy in Korea is becoming increasingly child-centered, and based on the best interests of the child, rather than the past policies of existing forces-based, so called the institution owners or policy makers of the authoritarian society.

Table 4: National statistics: Foster Home & Children by family types, year

Source: MOHW, Family and Child Care and Children’s Policy Division

Family-friendly foster care is generally defined as substitute care for children outside of their own home, in the home of a surrogate family. This form of care includes both: 1) kinship foster care and 2) non-kinship foster care. Non-kinship family based foster care is an idea that KFCA tried to set up in Korean society in order to promote harmony outside the family as a whole. Even though kinship care is very similar to the community based nurture in the Korean traditional society, nuclear family structure and urbanized living does not fit in such traditional kinship care today. This kinship care model does not conflict with core values and is more frequent however, most of kinship carers are poor as well and sometimes too old to look after their relatives such as grandchildren. In fact, kinship foster care accounts for 92.6 % of all children in care, as opposed to non-kinship foster care that accounts for 7.4 % of children in care. Thus we have to enlarge the number of non-kinship foster care as much as possible. Providing family based foster care for displaced children is one alternative that Korean government is trying to develop. Since that time family based foster care has significantly become a more visible option for alternative care.

Classification

Foster Home Foster children

Kinship care

Non-Kinship

care Total Kinship

care

Non-Kinship

care Total

2000 1,193 114 1,307 1,623 149 1,772

2001 3,005 241 3,246 4,101 324 4,425

2002 3,705 283 3,985 5,183 394 5,577

2003 4,498 352 4,850 6,217 495 6,712

2004 3,719 662 3,719 4,133 869 5,002

2005 3,253 802 4,055 4,396 1,042 5,438

KFCA has a mandate to develop,

1) The legal authority to intervene in the lives of children who require alternative out of home placements is in a state of flux

2) Foster parents training programs designed specifically to meet the needs of Korean foster parents.

3) There is a significant shortage of foster parents. Thus we advocate our effort for foster care and the rights of child in need.

4) Kinship foster care in Korea has not been well researched and carefully reexamined. All of these issues taken together impose significant barriers that must be overcome if this emerging system is to be successful. Fortunately Korean society has achieved great success in political democratization and economic growth. The foster care movement in Korea goes together well with the progressive civil movement for the rights of people, overcoming historical constraints such as the history of military dictatorship. This is the time to turn our heads towards the rights of the child and take foster care as family-friendly environment alternative in order to prevent family disorders. All children have the right to a happy family.

References

Kang, Soon-Won (2000), Education for Peace and Human Rights, Seoul: Hanwool _____(2005),"The Tasks of KFCA", Symposium Document on Foster Care in Korea and Japan, KFCA

Kim, Kyungryun (2005), "Child Rights and Foster Care: The Guidelines for the Child-centered Foster Care Service", Child Rights and Foster Care, National Foster Care Center, PP. 17-33

Korean Council for Child Organizations (2006),Forum on Implementation of U N CRC in Korea, KCCO

Yoon, Hyemi, e tal (2005), Theory of Child Welfar e, Seoul: Chunglock Chang, Inhyeop; Oh, Jeongsoo (2002), Theory of Child and Youth Welfare, Seoul: SNU Press

Ministry of Health and Welfare (2005), Guideline and Statistics for the Korean Child Welfare Services

George, S .& Oudenhoven, N.(2002),Stakeholders in Foster Care, International Foster Care Organization

Kim, Jung Woo (2004),"Foster Care in Korea", A paper presented in IFCO conference Prague