Latest news with #internationaladoption
Washington Post
5 days ago
- General
- Washington Post
Uncovering the truth about international adoption
A rosy adoption narrative relies on simplicity: A needy orphan is embraced by noble, loving parents who treat them no differently than they would a biological child. When it comes to international adoption, this standard fairy tale has long been entwined with the American Dream: A needy orphan, languishing in an overcrowded and dilapidated institution, is rescued by American parents who provide them with opportunities they could never dream of in their country of origin.
France 24
18-07-2025
- Politics
- France 24
South Korea to end private adoptions after landmark probe
South Korea, Asia's fourth-largest economy and a global cultural powerhouse, sent more than 140,000 children overseas between 1955 and 1999. But an official enquiry concluded this year that the international adoption process had been riddled with irregularities, including "fraudulent orphan registrations, identity tampering, and inadequate vetting of adoptive parents". The rights of South Korean children had been violated, the landmark investigation by a truth commission found. The independent body established by the state called for an official apology and blamed the government for the issues, especially a failure to regulate adoption fees that effectively turned it into a profit-driven industry. On Saturday, South Korea will introduce a "newly restructured public adoption system, under which the state and local governments take full responsibility for the entire adoption process," South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare said. The change is a "significant step towards ensuring the safety and promoting the rights of adopted children," the ministry added. 'Shameful part' of history International adoption began after the Korean War as a way to remove mixed-race children, born to Korean mothers and American soldier fathers, from a country that emphasised ethnic homogeneity. It became big business in the 1970s to 1980s, bringing international adoption agencies millions of dollars as South Korea overcame post-war poverty and faced rapid and aggressive economic development. But the system failed children, the truth commission said in March, with a failure to follow "proper legal consent procedures" for South Korean birth parents resulting in highly-publicised reports of lost children being put up for overseas adoption. The commission's chairperson Park Sun-young said at the time it was a "shameful part" of South Korea's history. Under the new system, key procedures -- such as assessing prospective adoptive parents and matching them with children -- will be deliberated by a ministry committee, in accordance with the principle of the "best interests of the child". Previously, this had been done by major adoption agencies, with minimal oversight from the state. "With this restructuring of the public adoption system, the state now takes full responsibility for ensuring the safety and rights of all adopted children," said Kim Sang-hee, director of population and child policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Activists, however, say the measure should be merely a starting point and warn it is far from sufficient. "While I think it's high time that Korea close down all private adoption agencies, I don't believe... having the state handle new adoptions is enough," said writer Lisa Wool-Rim Sjoblom, a Korean adoptee who grew up in Sweden. The government should prioritise implementing the findings of the truth commission, issue an official apology, and work to help the tens of thousands of Koreans who were sent abroad for adoption, she told AFP. "The government urgently needs to acknowledge all the human rights violations it enabled, encouraged, and systematically participated in, and, as soon as possible, begin reparations." © 2025 AFP
CTV News
17-06-2025
- Health
- CTV News
South Korea ratifies treaty aimed at safeguarding international adoptions
SEOUL, South Korea — After years of delay, South Korea has ratified the Hague Adoption Convention, an international treaty meant to safeguard international adoptions, marking a significant policy shift decades after sending tens of thousands of children to the West through an aggressive but poorly regulated adoption system. The government's announcement Tuesday came as it faces growing pressure to address widespread fraud and abuse that plagued its adoption program, particularly during a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s when the country allowed thousands of children to be adopted every year. Many adoptees have since discovered their records were falsified to portray them as abandoned orphans, carelessly separated or even stolen from their birth families. South Korea's Foreign Ministry and Health and Welfare Ministry, which handles adoption policies, issued a joint statement saying the country submitted the necessary documents to ratify the Hague Convention to the Dutch Foreign Ministry, the treaty's depositary. The treaty, which requires countries to strengthen state oversight and safeguards to ensure international adoptions are legal and ethical, will enter effect in South Korea on Oct. 1. South Korea signed the Hague Convention in 2013, but ratification was delayed by more than 10 years as the country struggled to bring adoptions under centralized government authority, as required by the treaty, after allowing private agencies to control international child placements for decades. 'Going forward, intercountry adoptions will be permitted only when no suitable family can be found in his or her state of origin, and only if deemed to serve the child's best interests through deliberation by the adoption policy committee under the Ministry of Health and Welfare,' the ministries said. The statement said the ratification was a significant step toward safeguarding children's rights and 'establishing an advanced, internationally compliant intercountry adoption system in Korea, reinforcing the government's commitment to upholding state responsibility across the entire adoption process.' A 2023 law also mandates the transfer of all adoption from private agencies to the National Center for the Rights of the Child by July, aiming to centralize processing family search requests from adoptees who have returned to South Korea as adults seeking their roots. International adoptions from South Korea have plummeted in recent years, with only 58 in 2024, according to government data. During the 1980s, South Korea sent more than 6,000 children abroad each year, under a previous military government that viewed adoption as a way to reduce mouths to feed and curry favor with Western nations. Authorities specifically targeted children deemed socially undesirable, including those born to unwed mothers or impoverished families, and granted extensive powers to private adoption agencies to dictate child relinquishments and custody transfers, allowing them to send huge numbers of children abroad quickly. Much of South Korea's recent reforms have focused on abuse prevention, including a 2011 law reinstating judicial oversight of foreign adoptions that led to a significant drop in international placements. But officials are at a loss over how to handle the huge numbers of inaccurate or falsified records accumulated over past decades, which have prevented many adoptees from reconnecting with their birth families or obtaining accurate information about their biological origins. In a landmark report in March, South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded the government bears responsibility for facilitating a foreign adoption program rife with fraud and abuse, driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs and enabled by private agencies that often manipulated children's backgrounds and origins. The commission's findings broadly aligned with a 2024 Associated Press investigation, in collaboration with Frontline (PBS), which detailed how South Korea's government, Western countries and adoption agencies worked in tandem to supply some 200,000 Korean children to parents overseas, despite years of evidence that many were being procured through questionable or outright unscrupulous means. South Korea's government has never acknowledged direct responsibility for issues related to past adoptions and has so far ignored the commission's recommendation to issue an apology. Some adoptees criticized the truth commission's cautiously worded report, arguing it should have more forcefully acknowledged the government's complicity and offered more concrete recommendations for reparations for illegal adoption victims. The commission's investigation deadline expired in May, after it confirmed human rights violations in just 56 of the 367 complaints filed by adoptees since 2022. Kim Tong-hyung, The Associated Press
Washington Post
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
South Korea ratifies treaty aimed at safeguarding international adoptions
SEOUL, South Korea — After years of delay, South Korea has ratified the Hague Adoption Convention, an international treaty meant to safeguard international adoptions, marking a significant policy shift decades after sending tens of thousands of children to the West through an aggressive but poorly regulated adoption system. The government's announcement Tuesday came as it faces growing pressure to address widespread fraud and abuse that plagued its adoption program, particularly during a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s when the country allowed thousands of children to be adopted every year.
The Independent
17-06-2025
- Health
- The Independent
South Korea ratifies treaty aimed at safeguarding international adoptions
After years of delay, South Korea has ratified the Hague Adoption Convention, an international treaty meant to safeguard international adoptions, marking a significant policy shift decades after sending tens of thousands of children to the West through an aggressive but poorly regulated adoption system. The government's announcement Tuesday came as it faces growing pressure to address widespread fraud and abuse that plagued its adoption program, particularly during a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s when the country allowed thousands of children to be adopted every year. Many adoptees have since discovered their records were falsified to portray them as abandoned orphans, carelessly separated or even stolen from their birth families. South Korea's Foreign Ministry and Health and Welfare Ministry, which handles adoption policies, issued a joint statement saying the country submitted the necessary documents to ratify the Hague Convention to the Dutch Foreign Ministry, the treaty's depositary. The treaty, which requires countries to strengthen state oversight and safeguards to ensure international adoptions are legal and ethical, will enter effect in South Korea on Oct. 1. South Korea signed the Hague Convention in 2013, but ratification was delayed by more than 10 years as the country struggled to bring adoptions under centralized government authority, as required by the treaty, after allowing private agencies to control international child placements for decades. 'Going forward, intercountry adoptions will be permitted only when no suitable family can be found in his or her state of origin, and only if deemed to serve the child's best interests through deliberation by the adoption policy committee under the Ministry of Health and Welfare,' the ministries said. The statement said the ratification was a significant step toward safeguarding children's rights and 'establishing an advanced, internationally compliant intercountry adoption system in Korea, reinforcing the government's commitment to upholding state responsibility across the entire adoption process.' A 2023 law also mandates the transfer of all adoption from private agencies to the National Center for the Rights of the Child by July, aiming to centralize processing family search requests from adoptees who have returned to South Korea as adults seeking their roots. International adoptions from South Korea have plummeted in recent years, with only 58 in 2024, according to government data. During the 1980s, South Korea sent more than 6,000 children abroad each year, under a previous military government that viewed adoption as a way to reduce mouths to feed and curry favor with Western nations. Authorities specifically targeted children deemed socially undesirable, including those born to unwed mothers or impoverished families, and granted extensive powers to private adoption agencies to dictate child relinquishments and custody transfers, allowing them to send huge numbers of children abroad quickly. Much of South Korea's recent reforms have focused on abuse prevention, including a 2011 law reinstating judicial oversight of foreign adoptions that led to a significant drop in international placements. But officials are at a loss over how to handle the huge numbers of inaccurate or falsified records accumulated over past decades, which have prevented many adoptees from reconnecting with their birth families or obtaining accurate information about their biological origins. In a landmark report in March, South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded the government bears responsibility for facilitating a foreign adoption program rife with fraud and abuse, driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs and enabled by private agencies that often manipulated children's backgrounds and origins. The commission's findings broadly aligned with a 2024 Associated Press investigation, in collaboration with Frontline (PBS), which detailed how South Korea's government, Western countries and adoption agencies worked in tandem to supply some 200,000 Korean children to parents overseas, despite years of evidence that many were being procured through questionable or outright unscrupulous means. South Korea's government has never acknowledged direct responsibility for issues related to past adoptions and has so far ignored the commission's recommendation to issue an apology. Some adoptees criticized the truth commission's cautiously worded report, arguing it should have more forcefully acknowledged the government's complicity and offered more concrete recommendations for reparations for illegal adoption victims. The commission's investigation deadline expired in May, after it confirmed human rights violations in just 56 of the 367 complaints filed by adoptees since 2022.
