4,000 unregistered foreign babies — where are they?

South Korea has no legal obligation to track them down, authorities say

A police officer and a search dog inspects a hillside in Jukseong-ri, Gijang-gun, Busan, where a mother confessed to have disposed an infant’s body in 2015 on Wednesday. (Yonhap)

South Korea had some 4,000 unregistered babies born to foreign mothers between 2015 and 2022, but authorities have no plans to check their whereabouts because the government has no legal obligation to do so, The Korea Herald has learned.

Last month, the state audit agency said it has discovered around 6,000 babies born in local hospitals but not logged in the country's birth registration system. Nearly two-thirds of them were born to mothers registered as foreign nationals here, officials said. But while Korean babies must by law have their births registered here, there is no such legal requirement for foreign babies, creating a blind spot in government oversight.

Some will have been registered in their parents‘ home countries, but there is no data available on how many.

The agency used Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention records of babies who are vaccinated against hepatitis B immediately after birth. About 95 percent of babies born in Korea get the hepatitis B vaccination right after birth. The records remain because they were born to registered foreign residents who are covered by the national insurance system. This means that babies who were not vaccinated, or were born to tourists or unregistered immigrants, would not be included in the 4,000 total.

Beside the lack of obligation, the government admits it does not have the capacity to track them down while it struggles to track down "ghost babies" born to Korean mothers, authorities told The Korea Herald.

“The government is only tracking the whereabouts of some 2,000 Korean infants who are obligated to register their birth under the law, and some other 4,000 infants born by foreigners who are not obligated to register their birth are not subject to the government’s full investigation,” said an official from Ministry of Health and Welfare.

The government has been expanding investigations into the missing babies born to Korean mothers in recent weeks. A series of alleged infanticide and infant abandonment cases have continued to emerge since.

The National Police Agency said Wednesday that a full investigation was underway, and that 15 unregistered infants had already been found to have died.

In one case, two infants in were discovered in a freezer at a 30-something womans apartment in Suwon. The case was referred to the prosecution on Friday. In Gijang-gun, Busan, a woman in her 40s who admitted to burying a dead baby on a hillside was being investigated by police.

Human rights activists have raised concerns over the unregistered babies born to foreign mothers, saying they could be victim to similar infanticide or abandonment cases.

“Among them, there will be many babies exposed to crime or alienated from essential welfare. I guess there will be many babies born by unregistered immigrants. It is a problem that the government has no will to track those babies,” said an activist of local civic group Universal Birth Registration who requested not to be named.

“Even if it tries to track them to find out their whereabouts, it’s also a problem because the government has no information about foreign mothers. They are 'ghost babies' who exist but do not exist in Korea.”

The Ministry of Justice estimated in 2017 that of 251,0000 foreign nationals that had illegal residence status, over 5,000 were under 19, though this includes children born outside the country.

Human rights watchdogs say that when adding this number to the 4,000 unregistered births and other children not covered by the system, the total number of unregistered foreign children could be as high as 20,000.

Activists stress that anyone born in Korea should be able to register their birth in Korea.

“The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has urged Korea several times that all children born in Korea should have their birth registered, regardless of their parents’ nationality, residence status and irregular migration status,” said Kim Jin, a lawyer who works for the Seoul-based nonprofit Dooru.

“Currently, the state does not even know the exact status of foreign children and does not manage them properly.”

In June last year, a group of opposition lawmakers led by Rep. Kwon In-suk proposed a bill on the birth registration of foreign children.

The bill aims to provide a basis for immigrants who are here illegally to register their children’s birth. Last month, Rep. So Byeong-chul of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea proposed a similar bill to protect undocumented immigrants who register their children from punishment or deportation. Both bills are awaiting review by the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee.

By Lee Jaeeun(jenn@heraldcorp.com)