A recent Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigation in South Korea has concluded that the government-backed international adoption program of South Korean children to foreign countries has violated the fundamental human rights of the adoptees, according to the constitutional guarantees and international agreements.
The commission, after nearly three years of investigating complaints from 367 of the approximately 140,000 South Korean children adopted abroad, found serious human rights violations linked to the adoptions to six European countries, including Denmark, the United States, and Australia. The probe revealed a collusion between local and foreign agencies to meet the demand for children by exporting them.
Agents obtained children through questionable or unscrupulous methods and enjoyed considerable control over the children, including full guardianship and the power to approve foreign adoptions, which resulted in inadequate oversight and extensive intercultural adoption of children whose backgrounds were lost, falsified, or fabricated.
The commission’s chairperson, Park Sun-young, stated at a press conference that the violations were preventable and that many adoptees experienced hardship and trauma due to flawed adoption practices.
After the Korean War, South Korea, stranded in poverty, eagerly pushed intercountry adoption as a solution, leading to poorly developed legal frameworks and hasty administrative procedures.
The report revealed that some foreign adoptive parents were deemed unfit to raise children, leading to prolonged legal battles to remove them as parents. Adopted children were sometimes given false identities, and if a child died or was reclaimed, agencies substituted another child’s identity to expedite the adoption, violating the adoptees’ rights to their true identities.
Consequently, the commission recommended an official apology, remedies for the affected, and the ratification of The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare, responsible for adoption in South Korea, has not commented on the report, and the government has not accepted responsibility for issues in past international adoptions.
Some adoptees have also criticized the report for not establishing the government’s complicity adequately and for weaknesses in its recommendations.
The commission, after nearly three years of investigating complaints from 367 of the approximately 140,000 South Korean children adopted abroad, found serious human rights violations linked to the adoptions to six European countries, including Denmark, the United States, and Australia. The probe revealed a collusion between local and foreign agencies to meet the demand for children by exporting them.
Agents obtained children through questionable or unscrupulous methods and enjoyed considerable control over the children, including full guardianship and the power to approve foreign adoptions, which resulted in inadequate oversight and extensive intercultural adoption of children whose backgrounds were lost, falsified, or fabricated.
The commission’s chairperson, Park Sun-young, stated at a press conference that the violations were preventable and that many adoptees experienced hardship and trauma due to flawed adoption practices.
After the Korean War, South Korea, stranded in poverty, eagerly pushed intercountry adoption as a solution, leading to poorly developed legal frameworks and hasty administrative procedures.
The report revealed that some foreign adoptive parents were deemed unfit to raise children, leading to prolonged legal battles to remove them as parents. Adopted children were sometimes given false identities, and if a child died or was reclaimed, agencies substituted another child’s identity to expedite the adoption, violating the adoptees’ rights to their true identities.
Consequently, the commission recommended an official apology, remedies for the affected, and the ratification of The Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare, responsible for adoption in South Korea, has not commented on the report, and the government has not accepted responsibility for issues in past international adoptions.
Some adoptees have also criticized the report for not establishing the government’s complicity adequately and for weaknesses in its recommendations.
