COURT RULING EXPANDS BIRTH REGISTRATION SCOPE

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Up until now single parents had to go through complicated procedures to register the birth of their children. Without birth certificates, children are not eligible for health insurance or childcare subsidies, and cannot attend school. But The Supreme Court has for the first time recognized children's basic right to be registered at birth, and significantly expanded the scope of birth registration.

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​Noeul lives with his father. His birth was not registered until he turned two. Noeul's father tried registering his son's birth in line with the law permitting single fathers to register their children. But each time he was told he was not qualified.

[Soundbite] KIM YOUNG-HWAN(SINGLE FATHER) : "I was told I wasn't allowed to register my son because his mother was married."

Although single fathers were allowed to register their children if they didn't know the personal information of the child's biological mother, the law did not apply to cases when the mother's name was known or when she had remarried. However, that's about to change. The Supreme Court has recently overturned previous rulings denying the right of a single father to register his child just because the name of the child's mother, a Chinese woman, was listed in the documents he presented. It's the Supreme Court's first ruling recognizing the right to register a child's birth. The court's verdict said, "For an individual to use state benefits, he or she needs a social status, which begins from birth registration. Depriving an individual of that right constitutes a violation of human dignity, values, the right to pursue happiness and a child's rights."

[Soundbite] LEE JONG-KIL(SUPREME COURT) : "The court expanded the scope of Paragraph 2 of Article 57 of the Act on Registration of Family Relations to protect the rights of children born as citizens of the Republic of Korea."

The Supreme Court has significantly expanded the criteria permitting single fathers to register their children. They can now do so even if they are unaware of the child's mother's whereabouts, when the child's mother refuses to cooperate, and when the father cannot present required documents for inevitable reasons.