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Boston Globe
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
A woman sues South Korea's government after her son was adopted abroad without her consent
In a landmark report in March, South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that the government bears responsibility for facilitating an aggressive and loosely regulated foreign adoption program that carelessly or unnecessarily separated thousands of children from their families for multiple generations. Advertisement It found that the country's past military governments were driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs and empowered private agencies to speed up adoptions, while turning a blind eye to widespread practices that often manipulated children's backgrounds and origins, leading to an explosion in adoptions that peaked in the 1970s and 1980s. Children who had living parents, including those who were simply missing or kidnapped, were often falsely documented as abandoned orphans to increase their chances of being adopted in Western countries, which have taken in around 200,000 Korean children over the past seven decades. Choi's lawsuit follows a similar case filed in October by another woman in her 70s, Han Tae-soon, who also sued the government and Holt Children's Services over the adoption of her daughter who was sent to the United States in 1976, months after she was kidnapped at age 4. Advertisement Suit claims illegal adoption and cites institutional failures Choi says her son, who was 3 years old at the time, ran out of their home in Seoul in July 1975 to chase a cloud of insecticide sprayed by a fumigation truck while playing with friends — and never came back. She and her late husband spent years searching for him, scouring police stations in and around Seoul, and regularly bringing posters with his name and photo to Holt, South Korea's largest adoption agency. They were repeatedly told there was no information. After decades of searching in vain, Choi made a final effort by submitting her DNA to a police unit that helps reunite adoptees with birth families. In 2023, she discovered through 325Kamra, a volunteer group helping adoptees find birth families using DNA, that her son had been adopted to Norway in December 1975, only five months after he went missing. The adoption had been handled by Holt, the very agency she had visited countless times, under a different name and photograph. Enraged, Choi confronted Holt and has since worked with lawyers to prepare a lawsuit against the agency, the South Korean government, and an orphanage in the city of Suwon where her son stayed before being transferred to Holt. Her now 52-year-old son, who traveled to South Korea in 2023 to meet her, has declined to comment on the story. The 550 million won ($403,000) civil suit recently filed with the Seoul Central District Court alleges that the government failed in its legal duty to identify Choi's son after he arrived at an orphanage — despite her immediate police report — and to verify his guardianship as he was processed through a state-controlled foreign adoption system. Advertisement The orphanage and Holt failed to verify the child's status or notify his parents, even though Choi's son was old enough to speak and showed obvious signs of having a family. In particular, Holt falsified records to describe him as an abandoned orphan — even though Choi had visited the agency looking for him while he was in its custody, before the flight to Norway, according to Jeon Min Kyeong, one of Choi's lawyers. Holt hasn't responded to AP's repeated requests to comment on Choi's case. South Korea's Justice Ministry, which represents the government in lawsuits, said it cannot comment on an ongoing case. Korea facing growing pressure to address adoption problems Choi and Han are the first known birth parents to sue the South Korean government and an adoption agency over the allegedly illegal adoptions of their children. In 2019, Adam Crapser became the first Korean adoptee to sue the Korean government and an adoption agency — Holt — accusing them of mishandling his adoption to the United States, where he endured an abusive childhood, faced legal troubles, and was eventually deported in 2016. But the Seoul High Court in January cleared both the government and Holt of all liability, overturning a lower court ruling that had ordered the agency to pay damages for failing to inform his adoptive parents of the need to take additional steps to secure his U.S. citizenship. The truth commission's findings, released in March, could possibly inspire more adoptees or birth parents to seek damages against the government and adoption agencies. However, some adoptees criticized the cautiously worded report, arguing that it should have more forcefully acknowledged the government's complicity and offered more concrete recommendations for reparations for victims of illegal adoption. Advertisement During the March news conference, the commission's chairperson, Park Sun Young, responded to a plea by Yooree Kim, who was sent to a couple in France at age 11 by Holt without her biological parents' consent, by vowing to strengthen the recommendations. However, the commission didn't follow up before the final version of the report was delivered to adoptees last week. The commission's investigation deadline expired Monday, after it confirmed human rights violations in just 56 of the 367 complaints filed by adoptees since 2022. It had suspended its adoption investigation in April following internal disputes among progressive- and conservative-leaning commissioners over which cases warranted recognition as problematic. The fate of the remaining 311 cases, either deferred or incompletely reviewed, now hinges on whether lawmakers will establish a new truth commission through legislation during Seoul's next government, which takes office after the presidential election on June 3. The government has so far ignored the commission's recommendation to issue an official apology to adoptees.
News18
25-05-2025
- News18
Korean Mother Reunites With Daughter After Decades-Long Search And DNA Breakthrough
Last Updated: After searching for 44 years, the woman reunited with her daughter, who had been abducted as a child and adopted abroad. After more than four decades of heartbreak and tireless searching, a Korean woman finally held her daughter in her arms once during a tearful reunion at the airport. The emotional moment brought closure to a 44-year-long ordeal that began in May 1975, when Han Tae-soon briefly left her six-year-old daughter, Kyung-ha, playing outside their Seoul home to run a quick errand to the market. When she returned, her daughter had vanished without a trace, launching years of unanswered questions and desperate hope, according to a report by the BBC. The turning point came in 2019, when a DNA match facilitated by 325 Kamra—a group dedicated to reuniting Korean adoptees with their biological families—revealed the truth Han Tae-soon had been waiting decades to hear. Her missing daughter, who had been abducted at the age of six, was alive and living in the United States under the name Laurie Bender. Now working as a nurse in California, Laurie travelled to Seoul to finally meet the mother she had never stopped wondering about. The long-overdue reunion marked the end of a search that had defined Han's existence for over four decades, turning years of sorrow, longing, and unwavering hope into a moment of healing and joy. '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 told BBC. 'When I came back, she was gone," the mother recalled. That fleeting moment in 1975 was the last time Han Tae-soon saw her daughter as a little girl. More than 40 years after that heartbreaking day, Han finally reunited with Kyung-ha, now a middle-aged nurse living in the United States. A DNA match uncovered the stunning truth. Han is now taking legal action against the South Korean government, alleging that it failed to protect her daughter from being taken and unlawfully adopted overseas, according to the BBC. Her groundbreaking lawsuit is one of the first of its kind and emerges at a time when South Korea is reportedly facing growing scrutiny and a national reckoning over its long-standing practice of sending children abroad for adoption, often under questionable circumstances. As per reports, Han is among a growing number of parents and adoptees coming forward with troubling accounts of fraud, abduction, and human trafficking. These allegations are linked to South Korea's international adoption system, which is said to have operated for decades with little oversight or regulation. From the 1950s through the early 2000s, an estimated 170,000 to 200,000 South Korean children were reportedly sent abroad for adoption, mostly to Western countries. As per reports, a recent landmark investigation found that successive South Korean governments were responsible for serious human rights violations, having allowed children to be effectively 'mass exported" for financial gain, often without following proper legal procedures or obtaining genuine family consent. First Published:
