The Korean family court has ordered a "custody investigation" — will a foreign mother lose to a Korean father just because he's Korean?

The family investigation assesses who has been raising the children and which arrangement serves their welfare; it does not score nationality, and Korean courts have awarded custody to foreign mothers over Korean fathers in cases with your profile. The "always side with the Korean parent" belief comes from cases that were lost for other reasons — a primary caregiver who could not document it, or a parent who gave the court a reason to fear flight. Your husband's lawyer is trying to supply the second reason. The investigation is where you take it away.

What the investigation is

The family investigation (가사조사, gasa josa) is conducted by a court-employed family investigator (가사조사관, gasa josagwan) under the Family Litigation Act. The investigator interviews each parent, may visit each home, observes the children with each parent, may speak to the children in an age-appropriate way, and reports to the judge on the children's circumstances and each parent's caregiving capacity. In contested cases the court may also order a psychological evaluation. The report is influential — judges rarely depart from a clear one.

What it assesses: who has provided daily care and for how long; each parent's availability, health and stability; the children's attachment to each parent; the home environments; the continuity of the children's schooling and routines; each parent's attitude toward the other parent's relationship with the children; and, for a seven-year-old, the child's own expressed wishes, weighed by age. The legal standard is the children's welfare under Article 837 of the Civil Act, and the investigator applies it to facts.

Nationality is not a factor the standard names. "Need to grow up Korean" is an argument about environment; a mother who has raised two children in Korea for seven years, in Korea, is raising them Korean. Grandparents nearby is a factor about support, and it is met by your own daily presence — an available parent outranks available grandparents, and investigators know the difference between a father who cares for children and a father whose parents do.

Language

You may bring an interpreter to interviews, and you should — not because your Korean is inadequate for daily life but because the interview is where your account of seven years of caregiving is recorded, and it should be recorded precisely. Tell the court in advance; the investigator will accommodate it. The "can't help with Korean schoolwork" argument is met with facts: who attends school meetings, who manages homework now, what tutoring exists, and — since the children are bilingual — what you contribute that he cannot. A parent who has managed a seven-year-old's Korean schooling for two years has already answered the question.

The flight argument

You cannot disprove an intention. You can make it implausible and you can make it irrelevant. Implausible: your life is in Korea — the F-6, the part-time work, the children's schools, seven years of residence; say so with documents. Irrelevant: offer, in writing, what a court would order anyway — that the children's habitual residence remains Korea, that neither parent removes them abroad without the other's written consent or a court order, that passports are handled jointly, and that his visitation is generous and specific. A mother who volunteers those terms has converted "she might take them" into "she has agreed not to." Korea is a Hague Child Abduction Convention country; the court knows the remedy exists, and a parent who acknowledges it is not a flight risk in the court's eyes.

Which route: agreement, mediation, litigation

The investigation report often produces a settlement in mediation (조정, jojeong), because both sides see what the judge will see. Prepare for that as the likely endpoint.

Children, property and support

Custody (양육권, yangyukgwon) to you, with visitation (면접교섭, myeonjeop gyoseop) and child support (양육비, yangyukbi) from him, is the arrangement your facts support. Property division (재산분할, jaesan bunhal) and consolation money (위자료, wijaryo) run alongside.

What this means for your stay in Korea

A custody order for two Korean children is the document immigration rules contemplate for a foreign parent raising Korean children after divorce; the Immigration Office decides, and we do not predict. MEGA X handles the divorce; where the result affects your stay, we coordinate with an immigration specialist as part of the case.

Practical insight

Foreign mothers lose custody investigations in Korea by arriving as defendants — explaining that they are not what the other side says — instead of as the parent with the record. The investigator wants the record: the pediatrician, the daycare and school contacts, the calendar, the photographs, the routine. Bring it in a folder. And do not, in any interview, criticize his parents; an investigator listens for which parent supports the children's other relationships.

Send us the investigation notice and a summary of the children's routine, and we can prepare the caregiving file and the written undertaking for the investigator — by text consultation or at +82-2-522-3959.

— MEGA X Law Firm Korea, International Family Law Team