Baby Box – Unwanted Babies

In this report, we follow a man who’s dedicated his life to saving South Korea’s unwanted babies. With hundreds of them being abandoned every year, why has the government ordered him to stop?

Up to 18 babies a month end up in pastor Lee’s Baby Box, a box attached to his house for women to leave their unwanted children in. “The babies that come here are the ones who’d otherwise die,” he says. The shame of having a baby out of wedlock leaves many women feeling desperate. But some say the Baby Box encourages mothers to abandon babies without registration, slowing down the adoption process. Pastor Lee’s been ordered to shut down his facility, but remains defiant: “There is nothing illegal about saving someone’s life.”

The children are left in his purpose built baby box by desperate mothers, who feel they are no longer able to look after the youngsters themselves.

A look at the sad stories of women wanting to escape the stigma of having children out of wedlock, and the heartwarming work of Pastor Lee in caring for them.

But it’s a challenging job… new laws on registering births are making it more difficult to find adoptive parents, and some are critical of Pastor Lee for making it too easy to abandon unwanted children.