New law to require medical workers to register newborns, even if parents don’t

South Korean National Assembly on Friday passed legislation requiring workers at medical institutions to register newborns starting a year from now.

The newly passed legislation is aimed at preventing children from going unregistered. Previously, only parents had the authority to register the birth of their child.

According to the Board of Audit Inspection report released last week, at least 2,236 children born 2015-2022 in medical institutions were not registered with the government.

Children who are not registered lack access to social services such as health insurance and immunization, among other basic rights, and have limited access to schooling.

The passage of the legislation comes more than two years since it was first introduced by Rep. Kang Min-kuk of the ruling People Power Party.

The legislation was initially met with opposition by the Democratic Party of Korea, with its lawmakers saying such a law could lead to more parents giving birth anonymously and abandoning their children.

Kang, who authored the legislation, said in a statement Friday that he hoped the law would lead to fewer children remaining unregistered and denied essential rights.

“Our priority should be protecting children who are already born,” he said.

In a related move on Wednesday, the People Power Party announced its lawmakers agreed to back legislation allowing women to give birth anonymously in an effort to reduce the number of out-of-hospital births. The hospital where the newborn was born would then be required to register the infant.

The bill was passed amid a series of infanticide cases that have emerged after the government launched a nationwide probe into the whereabouts of unregistered babies.