Thursday, April 22, 2010

Dual Citizenship? Yes, please!

Saw on the GOAL Facebook page that adoptees will now be granted dual citizenship in Korea effective January 1, 2011! GOAL has been working on this for quite awhile... basically recognizing that even though we were sent abroad as children, we are STILL Korean citizens. I'm mostly just pumped about getting a second passport. :)

Here's a note from Dae-won Kim, from the GOAL Board of Directors:

The Nationality Law Revision was passed on 2010/04/21 by the Korean National Assembly. It will give Korean adoptees the right to re-gain their Korean nationality in addition to the adoptive nationality. The revised law will go into effect as per 1st January 2011.

After the launch in fall 2007 this campaign comes to a successful end by having the law revision passed. G.O.A.'L is grateful to all those who participated from the very beginning and supported this campaign by joining our worldwide signature collection, by donating money or by participating in our surveys and by giving important advice.

G.O.A.'L would like to especially thank Professor Lee Chul-Woo from Yonsei University who served as a special advisor to our campaign. Myriam Cransac who spent much of her time designing the entire campaign, the Ministry of Justice who always supported our cause and to all the congressmen who approved this bill.

Now that our campaign was successfully ended, much work remains to be done. We still need to negotiate with the government the problem with Military Service that may affect around 20% of the Korean adoptee community. We will also discuss all regulations and procedures with the Ministry of Justice in order to get all the answers before the law goes into effect. We are certain many among you will have questions. Please keep following the information either on our G.O.A.'L Facebook group or also on our homepage at
http://www.goal.or.kr

Giving Korean adoptees dual citizenship is a fundamental step in the improvement of adoptee rights. This step will certainly have an global impact on international adoptees from other countries.

What started as just a dream has finally materialized!

G.O.A.'L will certainly continue to report on the development on dual citizenship and adoptee rights. If you'd like to contribute to our cause, please visit our homepage.

In case you have questions please contact our office.

Best regards

Dae-won Wenger
Board of Directors

2 comments:

Julia Goolia said...

that is awesome, Kimmie!!

Mica said...

Ah, I know! This is so great!

I'm excited for both reasons--the idea of being a dual citizen is so badass AND, of course, because it's a big step in a recognition of adoptee rights. Yesss!