South Korea’s government enabled the “mass exportation” of children with private adoption agencies by fabricating birth records and failing to follow consent procedures, a long-awaited investigation has found. According to CNN, the country, which remains one of the biggest exporters of babies in the world, has sent over 200,000 South Korean children overseas since the 1950s, when the impoverished country was rebuilding from the devastation of World War II and the Korean War. Many of those adopted children, now adults trying to trace their origins, accused agencies of coercion and deception, including in some cases forcibly removing them from their mothers.
Now, after a three-year investigation, the government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its findings on the first 100 cases out of 367 total petitions filed by adoptees sent overseas between 1964 and 1999, per CNN. It found that 56 of the 100 were “victims” of the government’s negligence, which amounted to a violation of their rights under the Korean constitution and international convention.
According to the investigation, local agencies collaborated with foreign groups to mass export South Korean children, driven by monthly quotas set by overseas demand. Many adoptions occurred through dubious or outright unethical means, it said. The commission found evidence of fabricated records, including “deliberate identity substitution” and false reports that the children being adopted had been abandoned by their birth parents. It said that there was a lack of proper parental consent for adoption as well.
The commission noted that such lack of oversight led to large-scale inter-country adoptions, with many children losing their true identities and family histories due to falsified or fabricated records.
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The commission determined “the state violated the human rights of adoptees protected under the constitution and international agreements by neglecting its duty to ensure basic human rights, including inadequate legislation, poor management and oversight, and failures in implementing proper administrative procedures while sending large numbers of children abroad,” as per The Independent.
“Numerous legal and policy shortcomings emerged,” commission head Park Sun Young said, adding, “These violations should never have occurred.”
The investigation of more than 300 cases began in 2022 and is due to end in May. Till then, the commission has recommended that the government offer an official apology, conduct a comprehensive survey of adoptees’ citizenship status and come up with remedies for victims whose identities were falsified.