Tessa Wong, Hosu Lee and Jean Mackenzie
BBC News
News1
The chairman of the Sun-Young Park Commission (left) comforted the adopted Yooree Kim (right) during a press conference emotionally charged
South Korean governments have committed many human rights violations during the decades in a controversial program which sent at least 170,000 children and babies abroad for adoption, according to a historic investigation.
He said that the lack of government surveillance has made it possible to “export mass export of children” by private agencies that have been motivated by profit and have found examples of fraud, falsified files and coercion.
Since the 1950s, South Korea has sent more children abroad to adopt than any other country, most of them sent to Western countries.
South Korea has been far from tightening its adoption processes, but some adopted and their biological parents say they are always haunted by what they have experienced. The BBC spoke to a woman who said that her adoptive parents “took better care of the dog than ever of me”.
“It is a shameful part of our history,” said Park Sun-Young, the president of the committee, during a press briefing.
“While many adopted have had the chance to grow in magnetic families, others have suffered great difficulties and trauma due to erroneous adoption processes. Even today, many continue to face challenges.”
The report was published on Wednesday by the independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission following an investigation which began in 2022.
Since then, 367 adopted – which were all sent abroad between 1964 and 1999 – had deposited petitions alleging framing practices in their adoption process.
Until now, a hundred petitions have been analyzed, 56 of which have been recognized as victims of human rights violations. The commission is still investigating other cases, the request for research in May.
In the aftermath of the Korean War, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world and few families liked to adopt children.
The government of South Korea then began a transnational adoption program managed by private agencies, which received important powers thanks to special adoption laws.
But there was a “systemic monitoring and management failure”, which has led to many shortcomings committed by these agencies, according to the report.
The report noted that foreign agencies had required a number of children each month and that Korean agencies compared, “facilitating large -scale interventions adoptions with minimum procedural monitoring”.
According to the report, the Korean agencies did not bilse significant amounts and asked for “donations”, which transformed adoptions into “a profit -focused industry”, according to the report.
Other gaps include the adoptions carried out without appropriate consent of native mothers and the inadequate screening of adoptive parents.
The agencies also made reports that made children appear as if they had been abandoned and adopted; and intentionally gave children a bad identity.
Since many adopted had false identities listed in their documents, they now find it difficult to obtain information on their biological families and are found with inadequate legal protection, noted the report.
The Commission has recommended that the government be able to apologize and comply with international standards on transnational adoptions.
“ I had a painful and miserable life ”
South Korea has evolved to tighten its adoption processes in recent years. In 2023, he adopted a law ensuring that all adoptions abroad would be processed by a ministry of government instead of private agencies, which should come into force by July.
The South Korean government has not yet responded to Wednesday’s report.
Inger-Tone Ueland Shin, 60, was one of the petitioners whose cases were the subject of an investigation by the Commission. It was adopted by a Norwegian couple at the age of 13 – and later discovered that its adoption was illegal.
BBC / Hosu Lee
Inger-Tone Ueland Shin was one of the tens of thousands of Korean children adopted abroad
The couple, who was in the fifties at the time, was initially wondering to adopt but was rejected by the Norwegian authorities because they were too old.
They then went to South Korea and visited an orphanage, where they selected Inger-Tone and took it with them to Norway.
The couple only submitted to the Norwegian authorities for years later. The authorities approved it, despite the recognition of the illegality of the situation of Inger-Tone, because they determined at that time, it had no connection with Korea “.
Inger-Tone told BBC that she had had a lot of difficulty adapting to life in Norway and also alleged her adoptive father to have sexually abused.
“They took better care of the dog than ever of me,” she said. “It was so painful. I couldn’t speak or express myself, except to cry at night.”
In 2022, she managed to continue her local government in Norway and received damages. She also received recognition from her local government that he was responsible for “not supervising” her adoptive house.
His adoptive parents have died since.
“They never spent time in prison for what they did to me. They criminally picked up a child outside the country … No one took responsibility for what they did to me,” she said.
Although she is satisfied with the results of the commission’s investigation, she said: “I live in the bad country and I had a painful and miserable life.”
“I don’t wish anyone and I sincerely hope that they no longer adopt Korea children.”
