Investigations have found that the South Korean government, Western countries and adoption agencies have teamed up to provide some 200,000 South Korean children to overseas parents, even though there has been evidence over the years that these children were acquired through questionable and even unethical means.
According to the Associated Press, these children grew up and began searching for their roots – and some discovered they were not who they were told they were. These stories have sparked a rethinking of the international adoption industry. This has led to a new trend in society, where adoptees are advocating for transparency and accountability in adoption practices.
Alarming findings of adoption fraud
The survey, a collaboration between the AP and PBS’s Frontline, was based on interviews with more than 80 adoptees from the United States, Australia and six European countries, as well as their parents, adoption agency workers, humanitarian workers and government officials. In addition, the investigation drew on more than 100 requests for information and thousands of pages of documents, including many that have never been made public and some declassified by the AP.
In dozens of cases reviewed by the AP, children were found to have been abducted from the streets. Some parents claimed they were told their newborns were dead or seriously ill, yet the babies were sent abroad. Documents were falsified, leading to the reunion of adoptees with their supposed birth parents, only to find out later that they were not related at all.
Korean government officials declined to answer questions about their past behavior, saying they would wait until the fact-finding commission had completed its work before responding. But the Health Ministry acknowledged in a written statement that the surge in adoptions in the 1970s and 1980s may have been motivated by a desire to reduce welfare spending.
Adoption agencies have declined to comment on specific cases, but have long defended their practices, saying their purpose is to find foreign families for vulnerable children.
Historical context of south Korean adoption
Korea’s adoption program had its origins in the ruins of the 1950-1953 Korean War, when Americans adopted mixed-race children born to Korean women and Western soldiers. The program was later expanded to include unwed mothers and children from poor families. South Korea relies on private adoption agencies as its social safety net, pumping millions of dollars into the economy.
The South Korean government adapted its laws to those of the United States in order to allow children to be adopted into Western countries. The number of babies available for domestic adoption in Western countries had declined dramatically due to the spread of contraception and abortion. In order to speed up the adoption process, the Korean government authorized “proxy adoptions,” which allowed families to adopt children without having to visit Korea. Laws had also been amended to eliminate minimum guarantees or judicial supervision.
Employees who worked for adoption agencies from 1979 to 1984 stated that adoption agencies paid to have children searched for throughout the country. The agencies had no process for verifying the children’s backgrounds, nor did they spend any effort to confirm that the children were orphans.
Adoptees seek truth and identity
By the 1980s, the majority of children in adoption agencies came directly from hospitals and maternity units, which often illegally charged for babies. Despite the fact that adoptions were originally intended to keep children out of orphanages, in 1988 they collected more than 4,600 children from hospitals, or 60 percent of the supply.
Many adoptees have begun to question their identities, and more than 360 of them have asked the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Korea to investigate the circumstances of their adoptions.
Currently, no one knows exactly how many Korean adoption cases are suspicious or even fraudulent, in part because of privacy and sensitivity issues, as well as the vagueness and unreliability of documents.
