South Korean mother reunites with abducted daughter after 44 years, now suing government over illegal adoption
After 44 years of anguish and relentless searching, a Korean woman, Han Tae-soon, reunited with her long-lost daughter, Kyung-ha, in a tearful airport embrace that followed decades of unanswered questions. In May 1975, Han Tae-soon left her six-year-old daughter playing near their home in Seoul while she went to the market. When she retuFrned, her daughter had vanished, according to a report by the BBC.
The breakthrough came in 2019, when a DNA match through 325 Kamra, a group connecting Korean adoptees with birth families, confirmed that her daughter, abducted at age six, had been living in the United States under the name Laurie Bender. Now a nurse in California, Laurie flew to Seoul to meet her mother, ending a search that had consumed Han's life and confirming what years of hope and heartbreak had kept alive.
'I was going to the market and asked Kyung-ha, 'Aren't you coming?' But she told me, 'No, I'm going to play with my friends',' Han recalled. 'When I came back, she was gone.'
That was the last time she saw her daughter as a child.
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More than four decades later, Han finally reunited with Kyung-ha, now a middle-aged American nurse named Laurie Bender, after a DNA match revealed the shocking truth: her daughter had been abducted, placed in an orphanage, and illegally sent to the United States for adoption.
Han is now suing the South Korean government, accusing it of failing to prevent her daughter's forced separation and illegal adoption, according to the outlet. Her lawsuit is among the first of its kind and comes amid a national reckoning over South Korea's decades-long overseas adoption programme.
She is part of a growing number of parents and adoptees who have come forward with disturbing allegations of fraud, abduction, and human trafficking linked to a system that, for decades, operated with little oversight.
Between the 1950s and early 2000s, South Korea sent an estimated 170,000 to 200,000 children abroad for adoption, mostly to Western countries. A recent landmark inquiry concluded that successive South Korean governments had committed human rights violations by allowing children to be 'mass exported' for profit, with little regard for proper procedures or family consent.
Experts believe Han's lawsuit could pave the way for more cases against the government. Her case is due in court next month.
A government spokesperson told the BBC it 'deeply sympathises with the emotional pain of individuals and families who could not find each other for a long time,' and added that it considers Han's case with 'deep regret' and will take 'necessary actions' based on the outcome.
But Han remains adamant that the state must be held accountable.
'I spent 44 years ruining my body and mind searching for my daughter. But in all that time, has anyone ever apologised to me? No one. Not once.'
She and her husband spent years combing through police stations and orphanages, posting flyers, and appearing on television.
Han said she walked so relentlessly in her search that 'all 10 of my toenails fell out.' In 1990, after a televised appeal, she even brought a woman into her home who claimed to be her daughter only for the woman to later admit it was a lie.
The long-awaited breakthrough finally came in 2019, when Han submitted her DNA to 325 Kamra, a nonprofit organisation that helps connect Korean adoptees with their biological families.
They matched her to Laurie Bender, a nurse living in California.
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