SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s government says it plans to end dwindling foreign adoptions of South Korean children, while U.N. investigators express “grave concerns” over what they say is Seoul’s failure to ensure a truth-telling and reparations for widespread human rights abuses involved in decades of mass overseas adoptions.
Friday’s announcement came hours after the U.N. human rights office released South Korea’s response to investigators who urged Seoul to develop concrete plans to address the grievances of adoptees sent abroad by, and abuse by, foreign parents.
The issue is rarely discussed at the United Nations level, even as South Korea faces growing pressure to address widespread fraud and abuse that plagued its adoption program, particularly during the boom years of the 1970s and 1980s, when it sent thousands of children to the West each year.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Li Selan said at a press conference that as welfare policies for children in need of care are tightened, the country will gradually eliminate foreign adoptions within five years, with the goal of achieving zero adoptions by 2029 at the latest.
South Korea will approve 24 foreign adoptions by 2025, down from about 2,000 in 2005 and an average of more than 6,000 a year in the 1980s.
In the health ministry’s briefing and response to the United Nations, officials focused on future improvements rather than past problems.
“Adoptions have previously been handled primarily by private adoption agencies, and while they may prioritize the best interests of the child, there may also be other conflicts of interest,” Lee said.
“Now, as the adoption system is reorganized into a public framework, and with ministries of health and governments taking a greater role in the process of approving adoptions, we have an opportunity to reassess whether international adoption is indeed a necessary option,” she added, citing efforts to promote domestic adoptions.
UN urges Seoul to provide stronger remedies
U.N. investigators, including the special rapporteur on human trafficking, forced or involuntary disappearances and the abuse of children, raised the adoption issue with Seoul after months of communicating with Yooree Kim. In 1984, the 52-year-old was sent to a French family without the consent of her biological parents because the documents wrongly described her as an abandoned orphan.
Kim said she suffered severe physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her adoptees and petitioned the United Nations as part of a broader effort to seek accountability from the South Korean and French governments and adoption agencies.
Citing wider systemic problems and Kim Jong Un’s case, U.N. investigators criticized South Korea for failing to provide adoptees with effective remedies for severe abuse and “potentially depriving them of their rights to truth, reparation and remembrance.”
They also expressed concern that the government had suspended fact-finding investigations into past adoption abuse and fraud despite reports of serious violations, including cases that may amount to enforced disappearances.
In its response, South Korea highlighted past reforms focused on preventing abuse, including a 2011 law that restored judicial oversight of foreign adoptions, ending decades of control by private agencies and leading to a sharp decline in international adoptions.
South Korea also cited recent measures to centralize adoption rights.
However, the government said further adoption investigations and stronger compensation for victims would depend on future legislation. It proposes no new measures to address the massive backlog of inaccurate or falsified records that prevent many adoptees from reconnecting with their birth families or learning the truth about their origins.
Choe Jong-kyu, a human rights lawyer representing Kim Jong-un, called South Korea’s response “perfunctory.” He noted that the promise of stronger compensation, aimed at reducing the need for victims to sue, was not spelled out in a draft bill proposing to relaunch the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses.
The government also vetoed a bill in April that would have removed the statute of limitations for state-related human rights abuses, although that was before President Lee Jae-myung took office in June. Following the recommendations of the truth commission, Lee issued an apology in October regarding past adoptions.
Choi, who represents multiple plaintiffs suing the government over human rights abuses under past dictatorships, said authorities often face lengthy legal battles when they dismiss truth commission findings as inconclusive or cite expired statutes of limitations.
Pressure mounts to solve adoption issues
Kim, who could not immediately be reached for comment, submitted a rare petition for compensation to the South Korean government in August, arguing that authorities mistakenly recorded her as an orphan when they adopted her, even though she had a family.
After nearly three years of investigating complaints from 367 adoptees in Europe, the United States and Australia, the truth commission admitted in March that Kim and 55 other adoptees were victims of human rights abuses, including falsification of children’s parentage, missing records and child protection failures.
Weeks later, the commission halted its adoption investigation amid an internal dispute among commissioners over which cases should be deemed problematic. The fate of the remaining 311 cases, which will either be delayed or incompletely reviewed, depends on whether lawmakers pass legislation establishing a new truth commission.
The committee’s findings acknowledge the state’s responsibility for promoting foreign adoption programs that are rife with fraud and abuse. The program is driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs and is driven by private agencies that often manipulate children’s background and origins. The findings are largely consistent with previous reports by the Associated Press.
An Associated Press investigation in partnership with Frontline (PBS) details how the South Korean government, Western countries and adoption agencies collaborated to send some 200,000 South Korean children overseas, despite evidence that many were obtained through questionable or unethical means.
Seoul’s past military junta passed special laws promoting foreign adoptions, removed judicial oversight and gave vast powers to private agencies that bypassed proper child relinquishment procedures and sent thousands of children overseas each year.
Western countries have largely ignored the abuses and at times pressured South Korea to maintain supplies to meet its high demand for babies.
