Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission: "Review Retroactive Parental Benefit Payments When Application Delays Are Not the Guardian's Fault"

Unable to apply by the deadline due to document corrections and other factors
"Consider the reasons for unavoidable delays"

A ruling has found that if a guardian was not at fault for missing the deadline to apply for parental benefits because of errors in documents for a child born overseas, the possibility of retroactive payment should be reviewed.

A children's goods store at a department store in Seoul. Yonhap News Agency

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission said on the 21st that it had recommended the local government concerned review whether to make retroactive payments through a Child Welfare Deliberation Committee or a similar body. The recommendation followed a grievance petition from a complainant identified as A, who was unable to receive parental benefits retroactively solely because the application deadline had passed.

A gave birth to a child overseas in September last year, but it took considerable time to correct an error in the child’s sex listed on local birth-related documents. As a result, A missed the deadline to apply for parental benefits in Korea and filed a grievance petition with the commission.

Under the current Child Benefit Act and related laws, applicants who apply for parental benefits within 60 days of a child’s birth, including the day of birth, can receive payments starting from the month in which the child was born. However, in cases involving unavoidable circumstances, such as a natural disaster, the head of a city, county, or district may, following deliberation by a Child Welfare Deliberation Committee or a similar body, exclude the relevant period from the 60-day count.

The commission’s investigation found that ▲the incorrect entry of the child’s sex on the documents was not A’s fault, and the time required to correct it could not readily be shortened; ▲A promptly asked the local authorities to make the correction and completed the child’s birth registration in Korea as soon as the documents were obtained; and ▲blocking the possibility of retroactive payment solely because the application deadline had passed would not serve the system’s purpose of easing the burden of raising infants and young children.

Min Seongsim, director general of the commission’s Grievance Mediation Bureau, said, "When an application is delayed due to circumstances that are difficult to attribute to the guardian, the reasons should be carefully reviewed."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.