reflecting on the trip

Our last day was an intense flurry of last meetings, back to back. We met with an artist who has created a beautiful piece regarding birth moms who relinquished their children, and a social work student who wants to study about the impact of social work counseling on unwed moms decisions to raise their children or not, and Dr. Boas had a final interview, did some work on our web site... and on. Then we ran for the bus to the airport and flew home.

Now, home and over jet lag we are reflecting on our trip. For all of us one of the main highlights was the meeting organized by unwed moms themselves. They are able to use the Seoul City Hanbumo Center to meet and discuss issues such as what kind of government support they may be eligible for and how to find jobs and the like. Eventually they plan to advocate directly for their needs. The energy in the room, as already written of in an earlier blog, was fantastic.

Another highlight was visiting the Me You Us center created by Aeranwon. Also mentioned in a previous blog, the number of women they are serving, with a very diverse range of services, after just 6 months of operation, is impressive.

Both of these stand out as they reflect two important changes. One is the readiness of unwed moms to become visible, to speak up for themselves. The other is the move of services to support moms while they live in communities. As there are so few places in group homes, most moms of necissity and probably to some degree choice, live with their parents, with friends, or in their own apartments. Community based, rather then shelter based, programs are essential for them.

Moms are organizing

Saturday we started the day viewing a film about sexual violence in S. Korea. It was a documentary full of the stories of women who had experienced sexual violence at different ages and stages of life, and in various degrees of severity. As seems to be true in so many parts of the world, women are often blamed, often blame themselves, and/or freeze and are unable to defend themselves in their terror. The women in this film, however, are all doing things that indicate they are not just victims but survivors, that they are able to thrive in their lives, stand strong with each other, and while certainly intensely affected, the sexual violence does not define them.

We were inspired to think that sometime soon, there will be documentaries like this about unwed moms. Moms will tell their stories, will show the country how strong they are, what good moms they are, how despite very difficult challenges, they are able to work for changes in the legal and social service systems to better their lives.

And then we went to a meeting of a group of women who are unwed moms who are just beginning to form their own organization. They are learning about what it means to have an organization and run it. They are learning about many aspects of the current situation for unwed moms in terms of government supports, educational opportunities, child care, employment, etc. In the long run, they plan to advocate for better conditions for themselves and their children, and all the women and children like them, who are discriminated against because they were not married when they had a child.

The meeting was full of energy, commitment, caring, intelligence and wisdom. The moms ranged from a woman who is 8 months pregnant to a mom of a nine year old. The meeting also included some single moms, experts, journalists and the mother of one of the moms. It was such a privilege to be included. We have no doubt that this groups will grow, and will be successful in working for their own needs, while supporting each other through difficulties.

The topic of the day was governmental income support and housing support they might be eligible for. It was clear very quickly that there are many rules and regulations that are confusing and maybe even contradictory. The officials who implement the programs have a wide range of discretion, so much depends on the attitude of the official in the local office where moms apply for benefits. As in the US, if you start to earn money, you can loose all your benefits, so it is hard to transition from government support to self support. We were surprised to hear that the income and assets of many relatives are taken in consideration, not just the unwed mom's parents, in making a determination. Even if the woman is not supported in any way by these relatives, she can be denied benefits because the government assumes these relatives could support her. It helped us understand one of the reasons why there is a gap between the government programs available and the actual experience of many unwed moms of being unable to qualify for them.

The housing supports available sounded equally confusing. There are several different kinds of support available. In order to qualify, you are rated not only on income and need, but also if you do volunteer work or other positive things in the community. Again, there seems to be a lot of room for the government official's own judgment of who is deserving of support.

The women shared information on how they had applied, what information was needed, when they had been able to receive support and when not. It was clearly a group committed to helping each other out.

Overall we thought the good news is that there are a number of important government income and housing programs available. The challenge is to make them accessible to moms who need them. Moms need to be free of the discrimination made possible by the high level of individual discretion available to officials, and to be able to qualify based on their own situations, not that of their families. So many unwed moms have difficult relationships with their families and may even be estranged. And the government will need to look at how to make the transition from receiving benefits to self support more gradual. Lastly it was clear that there is insufficient governmental funds to make these supports available to all who apply. AGain, the local officials seem to be the one to decide who gets the limited resources. If the Korean people decides to support these moms and their children, there will need to be an increase in allocations and clear directive to qualify moms with their children.

Another thing that struck us was the way women are let go from work or removed from school when their pregnancy is apparent. And that their personal registration document, which must be shown when applying for a job, includes their status as unwed moms. This level of legal discrimination is a huge obstacle for these women. It reminded us of how far we have come in the US in making this kind of discrimination against women illegal. While it undoubtedly continues, it has dramatically decreased, given the legal protections for women and their children in the US.

Listening to the moms, we have complete confidence that they themselves will be able to educate government officials and legislators on their needs, very soon. We left thinking that in just a couple of years, these powerful women will have changed their world for the better.

Day Three of the Study Tour

Day Three

We started this morning again at the Addison Parent Child Center, answering a number of lingering questions. The staff at the Center have been extremely helpful, kind and so very knowledgeable. We learned more about how they nurture young moms toward independence, at the moms own pace. The definition they gave us of empowering moms is to provide the skills, support and knowledge so that moms have the resources to make choices for themselves and their children. They teach all sorts of skills, provide emotional, financial and practical support and information and education. Then the moms are in a much better place to make the decisions about what they do and how they do it. We have seen many examples of this in practice and found this a very useful definition.

Then we were off to the Washington County Parent Child Center. This center has a new, beautiful and highly functional child care center. And an older building that is mostly offices. Almost all of the work they do with families is out in the community, in moms’ homes, and various kinds of community centers. While their philosophy is similar to the Addison PC/C their implementation is quite different. It was good to see how programs can be constructed quite differently toward similar goals. We also learned about how they juggle many different funding streams and the related tension, in order to pay for their programs.

We then whisked off to the Vermont capital building in Montpelier to meet with people who had been advocating for children and families for many years. We learned how they had built a coalition and network of people from many different kinds of organizations, who have worked together over the years on shared agendas. They have learned how to tell compelling stories backed up with hard data and statistics. They can mobilize people who care and who are affected by issues, to bring to the legislature from many different districts. It is powerful when people from many different kinds of organizations and with many different concerns can speak together for a particular shared issue.

We also learned more about the parentage laws created in Vermont in the late 1980s. Until then, a parent who was never married had to file something called a bastardy action in order to get child support for and custody of their child. Now there are parentage laws that stipulate how judges review custody and set child support and other related issues. If a parent doesn’t pay the child support, there are ways the state can help collect it and can also impose penalties such as the loss of a drivers license. This has not only increased the financial support of children, but in many cases has increased fathers involvement with their children. We heard how this and other important advances such as the family court system, took a number of years to achieve. Like all big changes, it took the work of many people, from many different perspectives over about 8 years to accomplish.

We then were treated to a conversation with people from the Vermont Department of Children and Families. We came to understand that the people of Vermont truly believe that it is a societal obligation to help care for children, not just a private family concern. All of society benefits from healthy children and all pay for the problems of troubled youth and adults. We learned more about the many social supports that unwed moms might be eligible for, and how some of those systems work. Moms, depending on their income and other circumstances, might get a cash stipend – often called welfare; health insurance; support for child care if she is working or in school or job training; rental assistance so her rent is free or low cost; food stamps to help with food purchases; WIC (a federal program) that provides well children check ups, nutritional education and food, and other health related supports for mothers and very young children; help paying heating bills and the cost of a basic phone line; and possibly help with the cost of school, job training, and transportation. And there are possibly a few other benefits from other state departments. We heard how one of the weak links in this system is the availability of rental support. There are not enough apartments available and not enough subsidies, so that there is a real problem of homelessness for some families.

We ended the day with yet another lovely dinner, hosted by our friends looking out over Camels Hump Mountain, enjoying Korean food and home made pie. Such a hardship. Over great food we had some time to reflect on what we are learning and what it might mean for our Korean colleagues.