A recent study by an independent commission exposes decades of abuse in international adoption practices, with minors taken from their families and sent abroad by private agencies (which made huge profits) without adequate oversight. Only recently has South Korea taken steps to protect adoptees, and began working with Norway where more than 6,500 children were sent from 1969 to last year.

Seoul (AsiaNews) – The South Korean government has tolerated serious human rights violations in international adoptions, allowing thousands of children and babies to go abroad over decades through private agencies.

In a report, the government's independent Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (CTR) ascertains that fraud, falsified records, coercion and negligence led to the adoption abroad of at least 170,000 children and babies since the 1950s.

The study, released yesterday, follows an investigation that began in 2022. To date, about a hundred petitions have been analysed out of the 367 submitted by people adopted between 1964 and 1999. Although only 56 cases have been acknowledged as human rights violations, the investigation will conclude in May.

Thanks to hasty and non-transparent procedures, children given up for adoption have not been protected psychologically in what Park Sun-young, the commission chairperson, calls “a shameful part of our history," speaking at a press briefing.

"While many adoptees were fortunate to grow up in loving families, others suffered great hardship and trauma due to flawed adoption processes. Even today, many continue to face challenges."

After the Korean War, when the country was very poor and in ruins, the newly formed South Korean government entrusted transnational adoptions to private entities, exercising "minimal procedural oversight" on requests from abroad, the Commission found.

In the absence of government regulation, South Korean agencies could demand very high fees, turning adoptions into “a profit-driven industry," the report reads.

In many cases, children were taken without the consent of their biological mother, or false stories of abandonment were created to make people believe that the children had lost their parents during the war.

Some adoptees were assigned new identities. Many of them, now adults, have not been able to trace their families of origin because of the absence of legal protection, their new names, and the lack of original documents.

South Korea moved to tighten adoption procedures only in recent years. In 2023, a law was adopted to ensure that all adoptions abroad are handled by a government ministry instead of private agencies, a measure expected to come into force in July this year.

Between 2004 and 2021, more than 16,000 South Korean children were adopted, yielding very high profits for the four agencies in South Korea that deal with international foster care.

Between 2018 and 2022 alone, they earned 22.1 billion won (US$ 16.3 million) in commissions for more than 1,180 children, an average of 18.7 million won (US$ 14,000) per child. To which must be added funds allocated by the government.

“They took better care of the dog than they ever did of me," said Inger-Tone Ueland Shin, now 60, speaking to the BBC about her adoptive parents, who could not adopt in Norway since they were in their fifties.

Taken at the age of 13 directly from an orphanage in South Korea, Inger-Tone has accused her adoptive father of sexual abuse. But she also says that she was ignored by welfare agencies.

Norwegian authorities approved her adoption many years later, when they deemed that she no longer had any ties to South Korea.

Speaking about her adoptive parents, Inger-Tone lamented that, “They have never spent time in prison for what they've done to me. They criminally picked up a child outside of the country... nobody has taken responsibility for what they did to me”.

After filing a lawsuit in 2022, she obtained compensation and acknowledgment of the South Korean government's role in her case.

“I have been living in the wrong country and I have had a painful and miserable life,” she noted.

Meanwhile, South Korea and Norway have announced cooperation in the adoption investigations, which have been carried out so far independently in the two countries.

Yesterday Park Sun-young met in Seoul with Camilla Bernt, president of the Norwegian Committee of Inquiry on International Adoptions.

South Korea provided the most adoptions to Norway, more than 6,500 children between 1969 and 2024, or 32 per cent of all adoptions from abroad in the Scandinavian nation.

The report will be an important source for our investigation and evaluation,” Bernt explained.

Norway launched its own investigation in December 2023, focusing on possible negligence on the part of national authorities. In January, it published a first report on Ecuador and Colombia and is now preparing one on Korea.

During the visit, the Norwegian delegation met with South Korean authorities, adoption agencies such as Holt, biological parents, researchers and associations.

“For us, it is helpful during our visit here in South Korea to meet with Korean authorities to gain a better understanding of the Korean regulations and practices for adoptions both past and present," Bernt said.

(Pictured: the meeting between Park Sun-young, president of South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Camilla Bernt, head of the Norwegian Investigation Committee on Intercountry Adoption)

• south korea
• norway
• international adoptions
• racket
• child trafficking
• abuse