A group of adoptees or individuals presented human rights
abuse cases to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Korea, which
received 367 cases of adoptee records from four adoption agencies.
Approximately 60 cases were reviewed over nearly three years. The TRC shared
their findings during a public press conference on March 26, 2025. The TRC
concluded by addressing the government's lack of oversight in managing and
controlling the intercountry adoption processes.
Some of the key findings are follows:
- Instead of enhancing domestic child welfare, the government promoted overseas adoption as a cost-saving measure, delegating all responsibilities to private agencies without adequate oversight.
- Granting the head of an adoption agency, a key stakeholder in overseas adoption, absolute authority to exercise influence over the child's life, such as guardianship and consent to adoption, and allowing large-scale overseas sending of domestic children.
- During the overseas adoption process, information about the child's original identity and family was lost, distorted, or falsified, and appropriate protective measures were not implemented even after sending the child overseas.
Clearly there have been some mistakes in the past processes,
and I feel very sympathetic to all those adoptees that have been impacted by
the errors. It’s regrettable that the adoption processes were not handled
better in the past.
But the TRC’s investigation on just 60 cases to condemn the
entire intercountry adoption of over 175,000 cases is too narrow and
inconclusive at best. The sample size is 0.03% of the entire adoptee
population. Yet the media carried the problem using the term ‘widespread fraud’
in intercountry adoption. TRC’s conclusion was just one sided and not complete.
It would have been better for TRC to categorically summarize how many of those
60 cases resulted in false records, or switching a child, etc. Instead, the TRC seemed to paint all
adoptions were fraught with errors.
It certainly did not factor in the historical or cultural
perspectives that led to such a large number of children being abandoned or
given up for adoption. And why the agencies (or by the government) felt the
necessity of sending the children abroad for adoption.
If the TRC considered the following factors in their
conclusion, it would have given them a more complete picture of what happened
and why it happened.
1. For centuries,
the Korean culture looked down on unwed mothers giving birth out of marriage,
and it brought shame to the families involved and the families tried to hide
their shame by abandoning children and pretending nothing happened. This is the
main reason for so many abandonments or relinquishments by unwed mothers.
However, there were a few bold and caring unwed mothers that wanted to keep
their babies, but often the pressures from their parents and grandparents
caused them to give up their babies.
2. There was no
clear law or procedures in place at the time, and many orphanages or agencies
did not have enough information to handle the homeless children, especially to
return the children to biological families.
So, judging past processes or practices that were legal and acceptable
and approved by the government in those days with the current standards or law
is unfair by the TRC.
3. The children
were born at the time of history when Korea was poor and there was no means or
system in place to find the biological parents. Often parents would take their
children into orphanages and leave them there. For example, when I was in an
orphanage, I saw this happen before my very own eyes. People were poor and
could not take care of their children and taking them to an orphanage was a
solution for the parents as they don’t have to worry about caring for or
feeding another mouth. Some of the
parents took the children to markets and left them there and never
returned. This was especially true for
the children with special needs. In those days these scenes were common sights. Children were found with no identifying
information. The computerized system did
not come into place until the late 90’s. So, when a child was lost, he/she was
immediately reported to the police, which would later take the child to an
orphanage.
4. Often when a
child was admitted to an orphanage, there was no identifying information with
the child. Some children knew their names, but that was the only information some
children had. For example, when I was
admitted to an orphanage, my name was the only thing I knew. I had no knowledge of when I was born or
where I came from, and I did not know the names of my parents. I was one of the children that was admitted
to an orphanage with no identifying information. The orphanage made up my birth
date on the day I was admitted. Often an
orphanage would assign a birth date and would register a child under the
orphanage director’s name. Later when the child is transferred to an adoption
agency, the agency receives the same identifying information from the
orphanage. However, in many cases the identifying information and other records
were not transferred to the agencies, so the agencies were left to assign their
own identifying information and register the children. Often the records from orphanages did not
come with the children when the agencies took custody of the children. So, the
agencies had to make up the identifying information for the children. This was
common practice in those days as there were no regulations or laws that
governed the processes.
5. The
authorities had no way of finding the identity of the child as there was no
computerized system. A child who has been separated from the birth parents may
have already been registered under the family records. But when the child is abandoned or sent into
an orphanage, the parents ignore the important information. So, the orphanage
would create new information and register the child. It so happens that during
the birth search process by adoptees, when an adoptee finds two separate forms
of birth registry and other conflicting documents, it is natural for the
adoptee to suspect the agencies of falsifying the birth documents.
6. Adoption
agencies’ only motivation was humanitarian reasons, not so much on making
profit for Korea, like the TRC accuses. It was such a small portion of the
entire economy. The monetary motive was something the anti-adoption groups have
always accused the agencies by smearing them.
7. Perhaps the
biggest problem with TRC’s conclusion was the complete absence of what would
have happened had there been no adoptions in the first place. Without adoption,
almost all the children would have been placed into orphanages. All 367
adoptees that have submitted the complaints to the TRC would have grown up in
institutions. Would their lives have
been better had they stayed in Korea? I seriously doubt it, though there may be
a few exceptions.
There have been numerous studies worldwide on the impact of
institutionalization on children. From physical and psychological development
delays to lower IQ levels were the results. On top of that, the children
suffered from delays in social skills which tremendously impacted negatively on
their growth.
As for public education, without parental stimulation or
involvement in the lives of the children, the children in institutions fell far
below in academic performance when compared to the children with parents. When a child reaches the age of 18, the child
experiences a forced emancipation from the orphanage system with very little
preparation to survive in the society, which very much limits his/her higher
education opportunity which was pretty much nonexistent in the old days.
This is still a challenge as most of the orphans do not want
to go to college despite the government aid available to them. The Korean society in general discriminates
against children with orphan background, where he/she is shunned from getting
good jobs or being able to marry someone.
It is very common for parents to deny marriage of their biological child
to a person with an orphan background.
The Korean government and the adoption agencies knew the
situation in Korea very well, and they opted to provide families for the
children overseas rather than to allow them to suffer in Korea. Also, the stark
reality was that Koreans simply don’t adopt their own kind due to centuries of
old Confucian tradition of valuing family bloodline and not being able to
accept someone from outside. Although the adoption culture has significantly
improved over the years, the stigma still remains for much of the Korean
population.
8. Another
fallacy with the TRC findings is that there is absolutely no consideration for
around 15,000 orphans that remain in 260 orphanages in Korea. What about their
rights? What about the injustices done to them by their biological parents
abandoning them or unable to care for them? Who will speak on their behalf?
And what about the thousands of orphans that have aged-out
of the orphanage system and struggling to survive in the world? What about the
human rights abuse suffered by them? Who will speak on behalf of them? Will TRC take on to investigate how their
rights have been violated? Intercountry adoptees have suffered human rights
violations? Would they have chosen to have their human rights violated even
more had they remained in Korea? Look at all the children growing up in
orphanages, and the life-long sufferings by tens of thousands of emancipated
(aged-out) orphan youths.
Why doesn’t TRC do the investigations into these unfortunate
children and speak about their human rights violations? These children are voiceless, and they remain
ignored. Adoptees had chances in their lives, but the orphans don’t have such a
chance. Who will speak on behalf of the children in orphanages?
What I see is that the protesting adoptees are
misunderstanding the true motive or reasons for their adoptions. It was simply
meant to give them a new chance in life as opposed to what might have happened
had they remained in Korea. This was the
decision made by the Korean government at the time and the adoption agencies
helped to achieve it.
Sure, there were some errors in the processes, some agencies
more than others. Over the years as the country prospered and in keeping with
the international laws on adoption, many of the errors in the adoption
processes were corrected to meet the current required standards. But who knows
in 20 or 30 years later that today’s standards will not be adequate when
compared to the later laws?
What the protesting adoptees are doing simply boils down to
this. They are upset over how they were adopted abroad when in fact Korea tried
to help them and find new opportunities that Korea could not offer. They are mistaken to believe that had they
stayed in Korea they would be reunited with birth parents. Reunification may
occur, but history shows that this is extremely rare. They are mistaken that
their lives would have been better had they stayed in Korea.
There are so many orphans in institutions, and for most of
the orphans, parents never return or even care to stay in touch. So, when orphans leave their institutions,
they harbor great anger in their hearts against their birth parents. With so
much prejudice against the people with orphan backgrounds and with limited
opportunities for them, only a few succeed in life. One orphan adult who was a
taxi driver, said that the success rate for people with an orphan background is
only 7%. I don’t know how he got this data, but he may have concluded this
perhaps after meeting with so many of his contemporaries. He considered himself
as a success as he was a married man and driving a taxi.
Life is full of complexities, where a person is not
guaranteed to be happy nor have a stable life. Many children are born and
raised by their biological parents. Some succeed, and some fail. Why couldn’t
this also be true for adopted children? Some succeed, and some fail. So why put
the blame on adoption? The important thing is to give children the
opportunities to succeed in life through family, and through adoption. But the
chance to succeed in life is greatly diminished had the adoptees remained in institutions
in Korea.
As for me, the agency had to make up my identifying
information and register me despite there may be a separate registration exist somewhere.
However, I am grateful for my adoption regardless as I was given a new chance
in life through adoption. And I am very grateful for it.
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