KOREAN NET

Participants on July 11, 2023, listen to a speech at an event hosted by the International Korean Adoptee Associations at COEX Mall in Seoul's Gangnam-gu District. (Yonhap News)

By Lee Jihae

The country has ratified the Hague Adoption Convention.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare on June 18 said it sent the ratification instrument the day before to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Netherlands. Korea will become a party to the convention when it takes effect on Oct. 1.

Seeking to guarantee the basic rights of children in the process of international adoption and prevent their abduction, sale and trafficking, the convention was adopted at the 17th session of the Hague Conference on Private International Law in 1993 and took effect in 1995.

Under the agreement, sending Korean children overseas for adoption is permissible only after deliberation by a ministry committee on adoption policy if suitable adoptive families cannot be found domestically and adoption abroad is considered to be in the best interest of such children.

The convention applies to all intercountry adoptions including that of a spouse's biological child during a remarriage and domestic and overseas adoptions.

jihlee08@korea.kr