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43 the BABy fActory Abandoned 68,272 / Broken homes 3,818 Unwed mothers 36,539 / other 164 Total 154,850 children in need of protection (1958-2004) No. of babies exported 155,014 total domestic adoptions (1953-2009) 72,947 children Sources: Korea Ministry for Health and Welfare and Families; Bethany Christian Services; Holt International MAjor ADoPTIoN AGENCIES IN KorEA Holt Children’s Services of Korea ESWS | SWS KSS (post-adoption services only) Korean agency fee $18,765 (Holt: $22,500) U.S. agency fee $10,950 Total $29,715 price foreign new parents pay total intercountry adoptions (1953-2009) 162,683 children price Korean new parents pay 2.198 million won ($2,200) Average combined income $35 million per year ‘Adoption policy has become a seemingly permanent solution to what was, at the time, considered an emergency situation. What was supposed to be a humanitarian effort to rescue mixed-race children and war orphans became the largest and longest running adoption program in the world.’ eleana Kim “unwed mother” on official family records. But as Choi says, “The child’s name is on the mother’s hojuk (birth record) and the child’s hojuk will only have the mother’s name, so anybody who looks at it will know.” Since the law’s implementation, the installation of a baby box in Seoul — an initiative driven by a Korean pastor to provide a safe place to drop off babies — has seen an increase in the number of abandonments. Proponents of the baby box say it will allow chil- dren to be adopted instead of being left on the street, a claim Choi refutes. “Before there was a baby box, expectant mothers were not leaving their children in the street,” she says. “But now, moth- ers who would not normally have left their children now think the baby box a safe place to leave their children.” Child abandonment was actually on the decline before the baby box was installed, but increased after the implementation of the Special Adoption Law revisions after heavy media attention. Heit says the media’s portrayal of the baby box has given the impression that the children will grow up happy. “Unfortunately, this is the way unwed mothers are being convinced that they should put their babies in the baby box,” she says. “There’s this huge misconception that it’s sort of an unself- ish choice for the mother to make in order to give their children a happy life.” The U.N. officially opposes the use of baby box- es worldwide because they facilitate abandonment, which is illegal in Korea. Nonetheless, some mothers are desperate enough to use it. Activist Jane Jeong Trenka says that this is because they have not been informed that there is a process called “partial registration,” which allows births to be registered but remain pri- vate. Mok says the alternative is to establish a relief center to give women in emergency situations a place to stay. “The way the current system is set up, there all these conditions you have to meet, and if you don’t meet those conditions, then you’re out of luck. For example, if you already have a child and you are pregnant, there’s literally nowhere you can get support. So there needs to be a place that accepts people in emergency situations, crisis situ- ations, unconditionally.”