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연합뉴스 Yonhap News
2008.08.04
해외입양 기타리스트 신성호, 부산서 `뿌리찾기'(종합)

(부산=연합뉴스) 민영규 기자 = 유럽 콘서트홀 연맹이 2004년 `떠오르는 스타'로 선정한 바 있는 벨기에의 드니 성호 얀센스(33.한국명 신성호) 씨를 비롯, 유아 때 해외로 입양된 청소년 15명이 4일부터 2박3일간 부산에서 열리고 있는 `뿌리찾기 캠프'에 참여해 눈길을 끌고 있다.
   유럽과 미주 등 6개국으로 입양된 이들은 이날 오후 5시 부산시청을 찾아 부산의 발전상에 대한 설명을 들은 뒤 오후 6시 시청 동백홀에 마련된 환영행사에 참석하는 것으로 뿌리찾기를 위한 첫 걸음을 내디뎠다.
   특히 부산에서 태어나 3일 만에 고아원에 보내진 뒤 돌도 안돼 벨기에로 입양된 신 씨는 14세 때 벨기에 음악경연대회(영재부) 기타부문에서 우승하면서 스타덤에 올랐고, 이후 뉴욕 카네기홀과 잘츠부르크 모차르테움 등 유명 극장에서 독주회를 가질 정도로 유명인이 됐다.

연합뉴스 Yonhap News
2008.08.04

고향찾은 해외입양 기타리스트 신성호

"나를 버린 것을 창피해할 필요 없다"
(부산=연합뉴스) 민영규 기자 = "친부모를 찾기 위해 부산에 오는 것은 이번이 마지막이 될 것 같습니다"

연합뉴스 Yonhap News
2008.08.08
홀트 여사 "해외입양 중단 아직은.."

(서울=연합뉴스) 홍덕화 기자 = "국내 입양이 늘고 있지만 아직도 따뜻한 가정의 손길이 필요한 어린이가 얼마나 많습니까."
사단법인 홀트아동복지회의 몰리 홀트 이사장(74)은 8일 한국 어린이의 해외 입양에 대한 비판론과 관련, "이해할 수 있다"면서 "그러나 부모에게 버림을 받는 어린이의 상당수가 여전히 보육원 등지로 보내지는 상황에서 해외입양을 서둘러 중단시키는 것은 바람직하지 않다"고 말했다.
미국 출장중인 홀트 이사장은 이날 연합뉴스에 보내온 글에서 이 같이 밝혔다.

JoongAng Daily
July 23, 2008
Marriage on the rocks
Wedding dresses at an exhibition in Busan on July 1 hosted by an association of wedding-related companies called the Korea Wedding Union.[JoongAng Ilbo]
ASAN In response to the dropping fertility rate in Korea, an unlikely bunch of matchmakers is rolling up sleeves to play Cupid.
Officials of regional governments are running “speed meetings” for single men and women who want to get married. While speed dating is not new in Korea, mass blind dates set up by local government officials are.
“The Bible says, ‘Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you,’” said Kang Hee-bok, the mayor of the city of Asan, two hours south of Seoul in South Chungcheong.

JoomgAng Daily
July 23, 2008
From baby boom to baby demand
Family planners have set up a marriage support center to get more people to marry and have kids
A birth control campaign poster, right, reads “Even two is too many” in the 1980s. Two decades later, the new poster, far right, says two is better than one and three is better than two.Provided by Planned Population Federation of Korea
Family planning first emerged in Korea in the mid-1950s when there was an unprecedented baby boom after the Korean War (1950-1953).
This led to the establishment of the Planned Population Federation of Korea in April 1961.

english.chosun.com
August 06,2008
Sex Ratio of Korean Babies Returns to Normal
The national sex ratio at birth stood at 106.1 boys to 100 girls last year, reaching the normal range for the first time since 1982, figures released by the National Statistical Office on Tuesday show. The normal range between 103 and 107 is the ratio projected when there is no artificial fabrication of birthrate by sex-selective abortions and was last achieved in Korea with 106.8 in 1982.
Park Kyung-ae of NSO said, "The gender ratio at birth has normalized thanks to the improvement of women's status over the last years, and therefore many stopped giving birth to three or four babies until they finally had a boy." The national sex ratio at birth peaked in 1990 with 116.5, and has been shrinking since then, with 110.2 in 2000, 107.7 in 2005 and 107.4 in 2006.
Meanwhile, Korea’s fertility rate was 1.26, still among the lowest in the world. Japan had 1.34, France 1.96 and the United States 2.1.
The NSO said due to growing use of fertility treatment, the number of twins increased to 13,537, or 2.73 percent of total babies born, up 2,707 from a year ago.

English.chosun.com
2006.05.24
Educated Men More Prone to Domestic Violence: Study
Men with college degrees are more prone to domestic violence than those without, a study suggests. The survey, conducted by a Catholic domestic violence help center in Daejeon together with Lee Seo-won, a professor of Yonsei University, shows that 25.8 percent of men without college degree and 37.7 percent of men with college degree surveyed had beaten their wives during the last year.
In general, 36.4 percent of men used violence against their wives since they were married, and 33 percent had beaten their wives during the last year. As many as 76 percent abused their wives verbally during the last year, the survey said.
In addition, 53.2 percent of men who grew up with fathers who were violent to their mothers tended to be violent to their own wives, almost twice the 28.1 percent whose fathers did not use violence against their wives.
Some 42.9 percent of wives who were physically abused by their husbands in turn used violence against their own children, but only 22 percent of wives whose husbands did not abuse them abused their children. Both findings indicate that violence breeds more violence.

Englishchosun.com
2008.07.24
Why Koreans Divorce
What lies behind the divorces of Korean couples? The Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations recently revealed intriguing statistics about the reasons for divorce compiled over 50 years at its Seoul head office and regional chapters nationwide, between 1956, the year the center opened, and 2006.
In the 1950s and 60s, the largest number of women cited their husbands’ extramarital affairs as the reason for divorce (45.7 percent). The second largest group decided to leave because their husbands abused or mistreated their parents (27.8 percent). In the 1970s, womanizing husbands also topped the list of divorce reasons, but an increase was conspicuous in the number of women who wanted a divorce since their husbands remained missing a decade after the end of the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
The number of women who sought shelter from their husbands’ violence increased by 10 percent to 31.3 percent in the 1980s. During the period, a growing number of men also visited the center to seek advice about getting divorced from wives who had left them to escape domestic violence. In the 1990s, the largest number of women wanted a divorce due to domestic violence. More than half of visitors (50.9 percent) who came to the center discussed a divorce with counselors in the 1990s, up from 39.9 percent in the 1980s.
Park So-hyun, an advisor at the center, said if an increasing number of women wanted to get divorced citing domestic violence, it was because they did not want to put up with the situation and chose to find a solution through divorce, rather than because of a rise in domestic violence per se.

JoongAng Daily
August 06,2008
Adoption no big deal to comic from L.A.
Kevin Shea, 30, is always smiling. That comes as no surprise, as he’s a career stand-up comedian.
A resident of Los Angeles, California, Shea is hoping to climb his way up the professional comedy ladder.
Shea is an adoptee from Korea. He says being an adoptee has never been a big deal in his life. He compares it to puberty.
“Think about the confusion when you’re a teenager,” Shea said in an interview in Seoul last Friday. Shea came to attend the annual conference of GOAL, the biggest adoptee-support NGO in Korea. On Saturday, he displayed his comic skills in front of more than 300 fellow adoptees participating in the conference.

JoongAng Daily
2008.08.06
Adoptee support group celebrates decade of work
People look at photos exhibited to commemorate the 10th anniversary of GOAL. By Moon Gwang-lip
The faces of the women, either holding babies or pregnant, were hidden in the photos.
But as the artist intended, that made more conspicuous the sadness or shame the women may have endured when putting their babies up for adoption.
The photos, taken by Lia Hyun-joo Barrett, 25, whose Korean name is Lee Hyun-joo, were part of an exhibition at Olympic Parktel in southeastern Seoul last weekend. The event showcased works by Barrett and five other Korean-adoptee photographers. It was held to mark the 10th anniversary of GOAL, which stands for Global Overseas Adoptees’ Link, the biggest non-governmental adoptee support organization in Korea.