S. Korean President apologizes for stolen children adopted overseas

 

S. Korean president apologises over foreign adoptions of stolen children

Asia / Pacific

South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung on Thursday offered a “heartfelt apology” for the country’s ill-managed adoption programme of the 1970s and 1980s that led to tens of thousands of children being sent to new homes abroad. An inquiry in March found that many of the children were wrongfully taken, even stolen, from their biological parents. 

Issued on: 02/10/2025 - 11:21

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FRANCE 24

Photos of adoptees participating at the Overseas Korean Adoptees Gathering are displayed on a large screen during the conference in Seoul, South Korea, on May 21, 2024. © Jae C Hong, AP

South Korea’s president apologised Thursday for poorly managed foreign adoption programmes that were rife with abuses and fraud, months after the country’s truth commission admitted the state's responsibility for such practices for the first time.

President Lee Jae Myung said in a Facebook post that he was offering a “heartfelt apology and words of comfort” on behalf of the country to South Koreans adopted abroad and their adoptive and birth families.

Findings by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and recent court rulings have confirmed some cases of human rights abuses in the course of international adoptions, Lee said, adding that the government failed in its oversight role in such cases. He did not elaborate.

Lee said he “feels heavy-hearted” when he thinks about the “anxiety, pain and confusion” that South Korean adoptees would have suffered when they were sent abroad as children. He asked officials to formulate systems to safeguard the human rights of adoptees and support their efforts to find their birth parents.

South Korea has faced growing pressure to address widespread fraud and abuse that plagued its adoption programmes, particularly during a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s when the country allowed thousands of children to be adopted each year.

Records falsified

Many adoptees discovered their records were falsified to portray them as abandoned orphans, while others were removed, or even stolen, from their birth families.

In a landmark report in March, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded the government bore responsibility for facilitating adoption programmes that were driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs. 

The report followed a nearly three-year investigation into complaints from 367 adoptees in Europe, the United States and Australia. 

Its finding broadly aligned with a 2024 Associated Press investigation, in collaboration with Frontline (PBS), which detailed how South Korea’s governments, Western countries and adoption agencies worked in tandem to supply around 200,000 Korean children to parents overseas, despite years of evidence that many were procured through questionable or outright unscrupulous means.

After years of delay, South Korea in July ratified the Hague Adoption Convention, an international treaty meant to safeguard international adoptions. The treaty took effect in South Korea on Wednesday.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

"Mom, Daddy has Been Raping Me", - "Did You Enjoy it"?

This story out of the Times of India tells us about an award winning documentary about a young woman who suddenly realizes that her father had been raping her since childhood. Such is South Korea's attitude toward sex abuse that she didn't even know that what her father did was wrong. South Korea, in many ways is a very modern country, but in some ways - not so much.

NEW DELHI: Dolphin (name changed) was 21 years old when she first realized that her father had been molesting and raping her since childhood. The young woman from South Korea got to know about it only when she chanced upon a book meant for children, educating them on the good and bad touch.

She fought and won the case against her father alone, after her family disowned her for her allegations.

She tells her story, the camera following her from streets to the court, in the documentary film — My No Mercy Home. For director Aori aka Choi Mikyung, finding a subject like Dolphin, the name given to the girl in the film, was difficult. "In South Korea, people don't talk about sexual assault. It is considered a matter of shame," It should be, of course, but for the rapist, not the victim.

Aori told TOI through a translator. Dolphin herself had approached Aori at a panel discussion on sexual violence. "She wanted to tell her story. She didn't think it was taboo," says Aori.

Choi Mikyung

The film, which took three years in the making until May 2013, had its world premiere on Friday at the International Association of Women in Radio & Television film festival in the capital.

Aori feels that there are many parallels in the Indian and South Korean societies. "The Korean community is essentially a family community. Most rapes are committed by acquaintances and women are hesitant to report," says the 40-year-old, adding, "at least 4% of the total reported cases in South Korea are of rape within the family".

Dolphin had first told her mother about the series of incidents. Her reaction left her with no option but to move out immediately. "She asked me, 'Didn't you enjoy it?", Dolphin recalls in the film. Unbelievable!

Her mother then asked her to forgive her father to save the marriage. Dolphin then dropped out of school and began to live in a shelter for survivors of sexual violence. She started legal proceedings against her father, who later accused her of "seducing" him in court. She also lost favour with her two sisters.

Aori says though sex education is routine in South Korean schools, counsellors can be insensitive and are often not well-trained. She feels it could be one of the reasons that Dolphin was well beyond adulthood before she realized what had been happening.

In the film, Dolphin recalls that initially her father had told her he was "checking to see if she was healthy" and later that he was "teaching her". "It wasn't that she felt nothing was out of place. She felt uncomfortable but did not understand the seriousness of the matter," says Aori, whose film has won three local awards in South Korea.

Reactions to the story, she says, have been sharply divided in her home country. "When I screened the film in Seoul, Dolphin was present. Men in the audience told her they felt ashamed and wanted to know if she was okay. In two other screenings in smaller towns, older women abused Dolphin and saw her as the offender for breaking up the family," says Aori.

Dolphin now lives with a friend, supported by a part-time job at a restaurant. She failed her university entrance exam, but hasn't given up. She can hardly be expected to.