Former Vice Minister of Gender Equality and Family Kim Hee-kyung mentioned the children of actor Jung Woo-sung, who admitted to giving birth out of wedlock, and suggested, "Let's not call them children born out of wedlock."
On the 1st, former Vice Minister Kim said on his Facebook page, "It's so annoying to keep calling Jung Woo-sung's son 'out of wedlock,' so I'd like to tell them to stop doing that."
Regarding the reason for this suggestion, former Vice Minister Kim stressed: "Classifying children as out-of-wedlock or out-of-wedlock based on their parents' marital status is in itself an extreme insistence on normality and an act that fosters prejudice.
He then criticized: "It's a perspective that puts parents at the center, and it's a term that negatively stigmatizes children who have no responsibility."
Former Vice Minister Kim recalled his experience in the previous government and said, "We conducted and announced a survey on perceptions of family diversity, and 76,% of the respondents agreed that 'the distinction between children born out of wedlock and children born outside of marriage is a discriminatory term and should be eliminated.'" I thought about it.
According to the survey results at the time, 75.6% of the respondents agreed with the removal of the legal term "born out of wedlock." In terms of gender, the approval rate of women was 78.4%, higher than that of men (72.9%). By age, those in their 40s had the highest approval rate, at 83.6 %, while those in their 60s only reached 56.3 %.
Current civil law divides children born according to the marital status of their parents into "those born out of wedlock" (hors mariage) and "those born out of wedlock" (those born out of wedlock).
On this, former Vice Minister Kim said, "I hope people will stop calling children 'out of wedlock,' a discriminatory term that many consider already outdated. Let's put the child at the center." He stressed, "He's not a child born out of wedlock, he's just a son."
Jung Woo-sung recently acknowledged that he is the biological father of model Moon Ga-bi's son and announced that he will take responsibility for the son.
He expressed the same stance again at the Blue Dragon Film Awards ceremony on the 29th of last month, his first appearance since the controversy over having a child out of wedlock. Jung Woo-sung said, “I am sincerely sorry for causing worry and disappointment to everyone who has shown me love and anticipation. I will accept and endure all criticism.” “As a father, I will fulfill my responsibility towards my son to the end.” This is the first time that Jung Woo-sung has directly expressed his stance regarding the controversy.
Meanwhile, childbirth outside of marriage became a hot topic when actor Jung Woo-sung and model Moon Ga-bi announced that they would not get married and would take responsibility for raising their children as parents. According to the “2023 Birth Statistics” data released by Statistics Korea last August, 10,900 (4.7 billion) children were born from illegal marriages last year. The number of births outside of legal marriage has increased since 2020, the highest in the past 10 years. The proportion of children born outside of marriage among all births is also steadily increasing, from 1.9 billion in 2017, 2.5 billion in 2020, 3.9 billion in 2022, and 4.7 billion in 2023.
Reporter Kim Ki-hwan kkh@segye.com
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