father’s birth registration has been simplified. Additionally, the legislation was revised in 2016
in order to allow a prosecutor or the head of the local government concerned to register
childbirth in case the welfare of a child is at risk due to non-registration of his/her birth.
47.
However, birth registration is not guaranteed yet for all children. When a child’s
biological mother is identified, the single father is not allowed to register the child’s birth, and
when the single father is not fully aware of personal information of the biological mother, he
may register birth to the family court only by submitting an application for ‘confirmation of the
birth of his biological child’ along with the necessary documents including DNA test results.
As such application is not accepted in some cases, birth registration accessibility is still low
among single fathers. In addition, in case there is no birth certificate issued for a child as the
child was born at a place other than hospital, birth registration will take a long time because a
DNA test should be completed and the family court’s approval should be obtained in advance,
and the child’s rights will be restricted in the meantime. This difficulty in birth registration may
also result in fraudulent birth registration. As a consequence of the investigation which was
conducted about the children who reached the school age in 2019 but whose location was not
identified, 13 cases of fraudulent birth registration were detected. In the case of children under
18 years of age with immigrant background who stay in Korea without Korean nationality,
Government has no official statistical data on those children, which may deny them public
recognition of their existence itself.
48.
The NHRCK recommended, in November 2017, that the Minster of Justice, etc.
should revise the relevant legislation to obligate a doctor or a midwife involved in the childbirth
to report the birth to the national or public institution. The Government promised, in the
Policies for Children toward Building an Inclusive Society released in May 2019, that it would
introduce a system in which medical institutions report childbirths to the national institution
(birth report system).
49.
The Government should set a specific plan to adopt a birth report system and
establish a universal birth registration system, including a birth report system, in order
to guarantee birth registration for all children.
Issue 17. Civil rights and freedoms in school - in relation to para. 6 of the
List of Issues
50.
According to the 2016 Current Status Survey on the Guarantee of Students’ Rights in
School conducted by the NHRCK among 6,100 students from 306 middle or high schools
across the nation, children’s civil rights and freedoms in schools are restricted. In relation to
children’s freedom of association and assembly, 65.3% of 842 respondent teachers and 51.2%
of 1,838 respondent parents answered that the school may control a students’ assembly within
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