South Korea accused of ‘mass exporting’ children in overseas adoptions

In a contentious program that sent at least 170, 000 kids and babies worldwide for adoption, South Korean governments have committed many human rights violations over the years, according to a landmark investigation.

It claimed that the lack of supervision by the government led to “mass exportation of children” by profit-driven secret organizations, and that there were instances of fraud, forged records, and coercion.

South Korea has adopted more kids than any other nation since the 1950s, with the majority going to European nations.

Some kids and their natural parents claim to still be haunted by what they went through, despite South Korea’s recent move to stretch its adoption laws. One woman claimed that her paternal kids” took better care of the dog than they ever did of me.”

At a press conference, commission chairperson Park Sun-young said,” This is a terrible part of our history.”

” Many adoptees had the opportunity to grow up in loving families, but others experienced great pain and injury as a result of flawed adoption procedures. Many people continue to face challenges also now.

Following an investigation that began in 2022, the separate Truth and Reconciliation Commission released the record on Wednesday.

367 kids, all of whom were sent abroad between 1964 and 1999, have since filed appeals alleging fradulent practices in their implementation process.

There have been roughly 100 petitions analyzed so much, of which 56 kids have been declared victims of human rights abuses. The payment is also looking into different cases, with the investigation expected to wrap up in May.

South Korea was one of the poorest nations in the world when the Korean War broke out, and some people were interested in adopting kids.

The South Korean government then launched a international adoption program managed by private organizations, which were granted significant authority by special adoption laws.

However, the report claims that these organizations committed many errors as a result of a” widespread failure in oversight and management.”

According to the report, Asian organizations “facilitated large-scale intercountry surrogacy with little procedural oversight” and international organizations had demanded a certain number of children each month.

The Asian organizations charged significant sums and demanded “donations,” which turned births into” a profit-driven business,” according to the report.

Adoptions that were carried out without the birth mother ‘ acceptance and without adequate testing of adoptive parents are other examples.

Additionally, the organizations consciously gave children false identities by fabricating information that made them appear as though they were being abandoned and adopted.

Some adoptees then struggle to find out about their baby families and are left with insufficient legal protection because many of them had false personalities listed in their documents, according to the report.

The payment advises that the government issue an official apology and adhere to international guidelines for international adoptions.

In recent years, South Korea has taken steps to strengthen its implementation standards. A law passed in 2023 that would allow for the handling of all foreign adoptions to be handled by a government department rather than exclusive organizations. It is scheduled to go into effect by July.

The South Korean government has not yet responded to the report released on Wednesday.

One of the petition whose circumstances the committee looked into included Inger-Tone Ueland Shin, 60. When she was 13 years old, a Scandinavian couple adopted her, and they eventually learned that her adoption was unlawful.

The pair, who were in their 50s at the time, had immediately applied to follow but were turned down by Norwegian government because they were too old.

After that, they traveled to South Korea, where they chose Inger-Tone and took her to Norway with them.

Years later, the couple just applied for implementation. The government praised it because they believed Inger-Tone’s condition to be illegal and that she had” no connection to Korea any more” by that time.

Inger-Tone claimed that her adoptive parents biologically abused her and that she had had a lot of trouble adapting to life in Norway.

They took better care of the dog than they ever did of me, she said. It was very agonizing. Different than crying at night, I was unable to express myself or speak.

She properly sued her regional government in Norway in 2022 and received problems. Additionally, she was given the news that her native government was held accountable for “failing to supervise” her paternal home.

Since then, her paternal families have passed away.

They have not spent time behind bars for the wrong things they’ve done to me. Nothing has accepted responsibility for what they did to me because they unlawfully picked up a child outside of the state,” she said.

She said,” I have been living in the wrong land and I have had a terrible and terrible life,” despite being happy with the findings of the agency’s research.

” I sincerely hope they do not acquire any more kids out of Korea and I don’t want this for everyone.”