The government of South Korea made the “massive export” of children with private adoption agencies possible by manufacturing birth files and not following permission procedures, according to a long-awaited study. According to CNNThe country, which remains one of the largest exporters of babies in the world, has sent more than 200,000 South Korean children abroad since the 1950s, when the impoverished country rebuilt from the destruction of the Second World War and the Korean war. Many of those adopted children, now that adults trying to trace their origins, accused agencies of coercion and deception, also in some cases who remove them from their mothers with violence.
Now, after a three -year investigation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the Government published its findings on the first 100 cases of 367 total petitions submitted by adopters sent abroad between 1964 and 1999, per CNN. It turned out that 56 out of 100 were “victims” of the government's negligence, which amounted to a violation of their rights under the Korean constitution and the international convention.
According to the research, local agencies have collaborated with foreign groups to massively export South Korean children, driven by monthly quotas determined by the overseas demand. Many adoptions took place due to dubious or outright unethical agents, said it. The committee found proof of manufactured data, including “intentional identity replacement” and false reports that the adopted children had been abandoned by their biological parents. It said that there was also a lack of the correct consent of the parents for adoption.
The committee noted that such a lack of supervision led to large -scale adoptions between countries, where many children lose their true identity and family history due to forged or manufactured records.
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The Commission has established: “The State has protected human rights of adopted people under the Constitution and international agreements by neglecting its duty to guarantee fundamental human rights, including insufficient legislation, poor management and supervision and failures in the implementation of the correct administrative procedures while large numbers of children are controlled abroad,” according to ” The independent.
“Numerous legal and policy shortcomings emerged,” said Commission Head Park Sun Young, adding: “These violations should never have taken place.”
The investigation of more than 300 cases started in 2022 and will end in May. Until that time, the Commission has recommended that the government offers an official apology, has carried out an extensive overview of the state status of adopted persons and thinking for remedies for victims whose identities were falsified.
