South Korea’s international adoptees seek justice, not homecoming

Seoul, South Korea – In 2023, Marie Wang began digging into her past for the archetypal time.

Growing up successful Denmark, she had ever known she had been adopted from South Korea successful the aboriginal 1990s.

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And for decades, she believed the communicative contained successful her adoption records: her commencement mother, a assemblage student, had been forced by circumstances to springiness up her baby.

But arsenic South Korean adoptees astir the satellite uncovered a signifier of fabricated records and irregularities successful their archetypal country’s overseas adoption system, Wang decided to petition her ain file.

What she recovered upended everything she thought she knew.

“It said my commencement parent believed I was dead, and that it was the doc astatine the commencement session who facilitated my adoption,” Wang told Al Jazeera.

“I deliberation Korea Social Service [KSS], my adoption agency, sent maine that papers by mishap due to the fact that they’ve refused to supply immoderate further accusation since. Every clip I ask, they accidental privateness laws forestall them from releasing anything.”

Wang is among a increasing fig of overseas adoptees who person discovered grounds suggesting their adoptions were built connected fabricated information.

“My adoptive parents would ne'er person adopted maine if they’d known I had been separated from my household simply due to the fact that everyone believed I was dead,” she said.

Now 33, Wang has ne'er returned to South Korea.

A photograph of Mia Lee Hansen that was included successful her adoption record [Courtesy of Mia Lee Hansen]

Mia Lee Hansen’s communicative follows a strikingly akin pattern.

Also adopted to Denmark done KSS, Hansen spent years believing the relationship successful her adoption papers until a sojourn to South Korea successful 2011.

“My adoptive parents and I met with a typical from KSS, who told america my files had someway been fabricated,” she told Al Jazeera.

“They said these kinds of errors happened due to the fact that record-keeping wasn’t precise bully backmost then.”

Receiving small assistance from the agency, Hansen turned to commercialized DNA investigating successful 2020.

Months aboriginal she matched with a relative successful the United States.

In 2022, she reunited with her commencement household successful South Korea.

“My begetter thought it was a gag erstwhile helium got the telephone telephone telling him I was alive,” she said.

“Everyone believed I had died.”

According to 1 of her siblings, erstwhile Hansen was calved prematurely successful the southwestern metropolis of Gwangju successful 1987, doctors told her parent she had not survived.

“My grandma returned the adjacent time due to the fact that she wanted to springiness maine a due funeral,” Hansen said.

“Instead, infirmary unit became aggravated and told her to leave.”

Her adoption record offers conflicting explanations for wherefore she was fixed up, including poorness and her sex.

Even the infirmary listed differs from the 1 wherever her household says she was born.

“When you’re adopted, you acquisition 1 separation aft another,” Hansen said.

“You’re separated from your commencement parent and moved to the different broadside of the world. People deliberation babies are excessively young to remember, but the assemblage remembers.”

Overdue recognition

For years, overseas adoptees and advocacy groups accused South Korea’s adoption agencies and authorities of enabling fraudulent overseas adoptions.

But past twelvemonth marked a turning point.

In a nationalist statement, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung offered a “heartfelt apology and words of comfort” to overseas adoptees and their commencement and adoptive families, saying helium felt “heavy-hearted” reasoning astir the “anxiety, symptom and confusion” galore had endured aft being sent overseas arsenic children.

His apology followed findings by South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which concluded past twelvemonth that the authorities had played a cardinal relation successful facilitating overseas adoptions done wide quality rights violations.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung addresses the media successful Seoul, connected June 19, 2026 [Jung Yeon-je/AFP]

After a astir three-year probe into 367 cases, the committee uncovered fabricated records, individuality tampering, fraudulent registrations portraying children arsenic abandoned orphans, and failures to get ineligible consent from commencement parents.

Its conclusions echoed a landmark 2024 probe by The Associated Press quality bureau and TV documentary bid PBS Frontline, which recovered South Korea’s government, adoption agencies and Western partners had helped nonstop astir 200,000 children overseas contempt mounting grounds that galore had been separated from their families done deception oregon coercion.

The probe besides recovered adoption agencies paid hospitals and orphanages for newborns and young children.

South Korea’s overseas adoption programme began aft the 1950-53 Korean War arsenic a payment inaugural for warfare orphans.

As the country’s system developed during the 1970s and 80s, however, planetary adoptions accelerated dramatically, earning South Korea the estimation of being the world’s starring “baby-exporting” nation.

The authorities has since begun confronting that history.

Following Lee’s apology, South Korea formally joined the Hague Convention connected Protection of Children and Co-operation successful Respect of Intercountry Adoption, transferring work for overseas adoptions from backstage agencies to the state.

It has besides pledged to extremity intercountry adoptions by 2029.

Yet galore adoptees accidental the government’s actions person not been accompanied by accountability.

Advocates accidental tens of thousands of overseas adoptees stay without answers due to the fact that galore deficiency the documentation needed to prosecute their cases.

That hostility was successful the inheritance of this year’s Overseas Korean Adoptees Gathering (OKAG).

The yearly conference, organised by the governmental Overseas Koreans Agency, brings adoptees from astir the world to South Korea to reconnect with their commencement country.

Anne Kim Loesch, who lives successful Luxembourg, returned this twelvemonth arsenic 1 of the programme’s assemblage leaders.

“I’ve ever wondered what my commencement parent looks like,” Loesch told Al Jazeera.

“When I spot parents with their children, they lucifer each other. I wonderment whether I look similar her. Is she tall? Is she tiny similar me?”

The gathering has besides go 1 of the fewer places wherever adoptees consciousness afloat understood.

“My closest friends backmost location aren’t adopted,” she said.

“They attraction astir me, but they can’t afloat recognize what we’ve lived through. Among adoptees, we don’t person to explain.”

Anne-Kim-Loesch attends the Overseas Korean Adoptees Gathering astatine Lotte Hotel World successful Seoul, South Korea, connected May 19, 2026 [Courtesy of Anne-Kim-Loesch]

Yet reports of wide fraud person changed however galore adoptees acquisition returning to South Korea.

“You inevitably commencement wondering whether your ain files were manipulated too,” Loesch said.

“You person to beryllium emotionally beardown not to vanish into that achromatic hole.”

For Lee Do-hyun, laminitis of KoRoot, an organisation that has supported overseas adoptees since 2003, the yearly gathering reflects bully intentions but misplaced priorities.

“The archetypal precedence should beryllium investigating the work of South Korean nine and the authorities for what adoptees person experienced passim their lives,” Lee told Al Jazeera.

He argues that authoritative programmes person focused much connected creating affirmative experiences than confronting achy truths.

“There has agelong been a consciousness of guilt toward overseas adoptees,” Lee said.

“One effect has been to enactment them successful luxury hotels and make cautiously curated experiences. But I question whether determination has been the aforesaid committedness to listening to adoptees themselves oregon uncovering what truly happened.”

Accountability inactive lacking

While South Korea’s apology marked an important milestone for galore adoptees, Peter Møller argues that it has yet to nutrient meaningful accountability.

Møller helps overseas adoptees navigate South Korea’s truth-seeking process done KoRoot, moving intimately with the TRC arsenic thousands of cases determination done the system.

One precedence has been coordinating with constabulary implicit the 56 cases the TRC officially recognised arsenic state-sponsored quality rights violations.

“But the constabulary person rejected immoderate cases without conducting immoderate substantive investigation,” Møller told Al Jazeera.

“The archetypal 5 progressive children falsely declared dead. Police dismissed them due to the fact that the statute of limitations had expired,” Møller said.

“But if you were abducted successful 1974, you’re inactive abducted today.”

For Møller, the disconnect exposes a deeper problem.

“It’s frustrating erstwhile 1 subdivision of authorities concludes superior quality rights violations occurred, but the transgression justness strategy simply rejects the cases,” helium said.

Authorities besides proceed to cull adoptees’ requests for information, often citing privateness laws.

“But if parents don’t adjacent cognize their children are alive, however could they perchance consent to releasing that information,” Møller said.

Peter Møller, left, attends a quality league astatine the Truth and Reconciliation Commission successful Seoul, connected March 26, 2025 [Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo]

Last year, the Seoul Administrative Court referred portion of the Special Adoption Act to the Constitutional Court, arguing that requiring commencement parents’ consent earlier adoptees tin entree identifying accusation whitethorn interruption cardinal rights.

The tribunal described the close to cognize one’s origins arsenic “an innate and indispensable quality right”.

The lawsuit remains pending.

Møller says galore questions stay unanswered.

KoRoot has asked the TRC to analyse the unusually precocious fig of premature births among overseas adoptees.

“We’ve identified cases wherever biologic mothers look to person been injected with drugs during gestation that resulted successful premature deliveries,” Møller said.

Since 2021, KoRoot has reviewed much than 4,000 adoption cases.

“So far,” Møller said, “we haven’t recovered a azygous lawsuit wherever each the accusation was wholly accurate.”

Møller had hoped past year’s apology would trigger broader organization change, but helium has been disappointed astatine the deficiency of reform.

“We expected a trickle-down effect erstwhile the authorities acknowledged wide manipulation,” helium said.

“We’re inactive waiting”.

A memo is displayed connected The Wall of Names for overseas adoptees astatine Omma Poom Park successful Paju, South Korea, connected May 20, 2026 [Ahn Young-joon/AP Photo]

For Anders Riel Muller, authoritative designation has brought validation, but not closure.

Like Wang and Hansen, helium was among the 56 adoptees whose cases the TRC determined progressive state-sponsored quality rights violations.

Today, helium returns to South Korea each 2 years.

“My narration with South Korea is precise complicated,” Muller, who is simply a prof astatine the University of Stavanger successful Norway, told Al Jazeera.

“It’s a state I emotion spending clip in, but it’s besides a state that I cognize didn’t privation me.”

In 1980, Muller, past aged three, was placed successful an orphanage by his uncle and aunt without his parents’ knowledge.

Although the adoption bureau knew his parents were alive, it designated him an orphan and assigned him a mendacious sanction and commencement date, making him astir intolerable to trace.

While the authorities has recognised that helium was wrongfully adopted, Muller has galore outstanding questions astir his case.

He has not reapplied for South Korean citizenship arsenic helium does not consciousness the request “to beryllium who I am”.

Muller views assumptions astir overseas adoptees needing to asseverate their individuality arsenic reflecting a broader misunderstanding of what they are seeking.

“Many radical successful South Korea inactive presume adoptees ended up with amended lives overseas,” helium said.

“That’s an statement that’s been utilized against Indigenous peoples each implicit the world.”

Then Muller paused.

“But however bash you repair exile,” helium said.

“How bash you repair losing your language, your household and your culture?”