Single mom of twins with disabilities encourages not to give up

Single mom Han Ji-hye (alias, age 29), whom your reporter met in Changwon, South Gyeongngsang Province, raises four-year-old twins with severe autistic disorder and intellectual disability. “I decided to join the interview because I wanted to tell any single parent considering giving up their child not to give up,” she said.

Han, a music major in university aspiring to become a professional musician, had an unplanned pregnancy in the third year of university in 2018. When she told her boyfriend, he refused to take responsibility and left her.

She visited clinics on her own to end the pregnancy but was refused. She met an illegal child adoption broker thinking that she couldn’t raise the child on her own. She did not follow, though, after being told that she had to give childbirth at home alone with no one knowing.

After leaving the hospital in February 2019 after giving birth to her two sons, Han went to the Jusarang Community Foundation, which runs Babybox, taking care of unwanted children given up anonymously. When she turned her back after leaving her children behind, she thought that she shouldn’t do this. Han decided to give up her two sons for adoption after counseling. However, she eventually couldn’t leave her children and decided to bring them up on her own.

It was not easy at all for Han to raise twin sons on her own. “After learning of their disabilities, I became convinced that there was no one else to take care of my children,” she said.

She lived in free housing provided by LH for low-income families as she could not afford to work, taking care of her children. She looked for various welfare benefits, relying on around 1 million won received from the government, including disability and single parent allowance and donations from private organizations. For toys, she relies on donations used by welfare facilities.


o0@donga.com