Birth registration bill passed with overwhelming support

The National Assembly passed a bill with bipartisan support that will require medical institutions to report the birth of newborns to local governments within 14 days on Friday.

Lawmakers pass a bill with bipartisan support requiring medical institutions to report the birth of newborn babies to local governments in a plenary session of the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul, on Friday, in response to calls for a revision in the law to prevent unregistered births. [NEWS1]

The National Assembly passed a bill with bipartisan support that will require medical institutions to report the birth of newborns to local governments within 14 days on Friday.

The amendment to the Act on Registration of Family Relations comes after the corpses of two unregistered babies strangled to death by their mother were found in a refrigerator at an apartment in Suwon, Gyeonggi, last week, sparking outrage.

The amendment was passed with 266 votes in favor and just one abstention.

The bill requires hospitals or other medical institutions to notify the local government within two weeks of a baby's birth through the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (Hiras), a move to prevent a situation where parents intentionally omit the registration of the birth of their child to authorities.

If the notification is not filed within one month from the date of birth, the local government chief, such as the head of a district office, will remind the individual obligated to report the birth, such as the mother or father, to report the birth within seven days.

The infanticide case was the latest reminder of a glaring loophole in Korea's baby registration system in which parents are only required to report the birth of their babies to the local government within a month after birth. This could lead to the abuse, or even tragic deaths, of unregistered babies, referred to as "ghost children," which is viewed by society as another blind spot.

These ghost children are not just denied primary health and education benefits but are exposed to negligence, abuse and abandonment.

The public demanded a swift revision to the law to prevent further similar cases after learning that a woman in her 30s had strangled her two babies to death soon after their births and kept their bodies in a refrigerator at her home in Suwon for years. Her baby daughter was born in 2018 and a son in 2019, and she confessed to police she strangled both of them a day after their births.

The mother also testified to police last week that she committed the crimes due to economic hardship as she already had three children, aged 8 to 12 years old, and lied to her husband, telling him that she had two abortions.

The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency charged the woman with murder and concealment of a corpse, forwarding the case to the prosecution earlier Friday.

The bill to enable medical institutions to register births unanimously passed the parliamentary judiciary committee on Thursday, through consensus between the Democratic Party (DP), which holds a majority in the National Assembly, and the People Power Party (PPP) due to the urgency of the issue.

The new law will take effect one year from the date of promulgation.

The bill did not specifically stipulate the punishment for a medical institution that fails to serve the reminder to register the birth.

Later in the afternoon, the National Assembly also passed a DP-led pro-labor bill with 174 for, four against and two invalid votes.

The so-called “yellow envelope bill” called for a revision to the Trade Union and Labor Relations Adjustment Act that restricts the ability for businesses to seek damages in the event of losses related to striking workers.

PPP lawmakers boycotted the vote in protest.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]