By Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporter
A lawmaker called Wednesday for the passage of a bill that would remove the names of adoptees' birth parents from their family relation certificates, an official document commonly required here for job and visa applications.
Currently, the certificate lists the name, date of birth and resident registration number of both the foster and birth parents.
"Recording and managing personal and family relationship information should be handled as a separate matter from deciding what scope of information should be included on a particular certificate," said Rep. Hong Jung-wook of the governing Grand National Party (GNP).
Hong said unnecessary information that may arouse social prejudice or discrimination should be eliminated or minimized from official documents.
"The protection of privacy should always be addressed before disclosing personal information through an official document," he said.
If the bill passes through the National Assembly before the end of its regular session on Dec. 9, the revision would likely take effect from June next year, Hong said.
Information on birth parents can be seen on the adoption certificate. But those who have been adopted overseas are restricted from accessing such information, according to a government official.
In 2007, the number of domestic adoptions exceeded the international adoption figure for the first time in Korea, according to the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs.
The total number of children adopted locally increased from 1,332 in 2006 to 1,388 in 2007, while internationally adopted children decreased from 1,899 in 2006 to 1,264 in 2007.
Some 160,000 children were sent overseas for adoptions between 1953 and 2007. The figure for foreign adoptions was more than triple that of local ones in 1987.