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Gender Minister Lee Jung-ok attends a meeting with single parents held at a cafe run by single mothers located in Dongjak District, Seoul, Monday. / Courtesy of Ministry of Gender Equality and Family |
By Lee Hyo-jin
Single parents will get more financial support and chances to receive vocational training programs and counseling services, the government said Monday.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family announced a set of measures aimed at improving the child-rearing environment of unwed mothers and single parents by assisting them in dealing with financial hardship and eliminating social prejudice.
The measures come as parents raising children alone often suffer economic difficulties as well as social discrimination and stigmatization, with several incidents recently showing that the current government policies lack practicality in supporting them.
An infant was found dead on the street in Seoul, Nov. 3, and the birth mother, an unmarried woman, was arrested shortly after. Earlier in October, a woman in her 20s who was not capable of raising her child, offered to sell her newborn baby on Karrot, an online marketplace for secondhand items.
Under the measures, the government will strengthen support for mothers from the early stages of pregnancy by expanding counseling services via social media channels such as Kakao messenger. It will allow unmarried pregnant women to get access to information about care facilities and receive one-on-one mentoring programs from experts and other single parents.
The authorities are also reviewing the legislation of a relevant law to enable medical institutions to keep data about the birth mother confidential.
Financial aid for child support will be expanded to include those who are also receiving basic livelihood grants, and the age limit for application will be expanded to those under the age 34, from the current 24.
The ministry also vowed to bring systemic changes to eliminate prejudice toward single parents by revising related laws and adopting educational programs for civil servants in governmental organizations.
Single parents will also have more opportunities to participate in state vocational training programs and take a gap year if they are attending school.
"We hope that our tailored approach will be able to provide aid to single parents and their children who may be experiencing hardship," Gender Equality and Family Minister Lee Jung-ok said.
There are over 21,000 single mothers and 7,000 single fathers in the country, according to a 2019 government survey. But due to a lack of support, Korea has seen an average of 127 cases of child abandonment by single parents annually over the past 10 years, according to data from the National Police Agency.