Fake Orphans and Stolen Babies: Investigating South Korea's Sham Adoptions | Foreign Correspondent

I am in Soul, one of the most dynamic cities in Asia, it is ultra-modern but deeply traditional. When you think about what makes South Korea known around the world, you think of electronics, cars, K-pop music, and food, but not long ago, one of this country's biggest exports was children in the decades after the end of the Korean War. 200,000 South Korean children have been adopted in North America, Europe and Australia as adults. Many are returning. I'm Nicholas Green, my name is isang, my name is my name. I'm Peter M. My name is Emma. I'm Samara. My name is Julian.

My name is Inu. I was adopted from Korea in Massachusetts when I was years old. They are trying to find their biological families. This is my life. It's my identity. I have been searching. for 20 years, please give me the truth and connect with a country you never really knew. Language has been a challenge in the process. Korean adoptees have met, compared stories, and some are discovering alarming patterns. This is just a small part of the evidence, there are accusations of adoption documents, forged identities, duplications and even

stolen

children, we were practically sold for profit, human trafficking, that's it, yes, that's absolutely what I believe, Now hundreds of adoptees from around the world are demanding answers.

I think it's very important that people know where I come from we're adults and we have a right to know it in the busy Guang Jang Market in the center of Soul Mary Bowers is just another face in the crowd and that's how she likes it how do you does it seem like living here in comparison? with the United States it's easier, okay, it's much easier to go back to Korea, everyone looks like me, like my whole body has relaxed. Mary was adopted from the United States in 1982 when she was a baby. In 2020, she wondered what it would be like to live in South Korea, so she took the plunge and moved to Soul.

What is your favorite thing about your career so far? This sounds incredibly clear. My credit card. What do you say? Because it was the first thing I had that had my name as my Korean name. It's not an adoption document, it's tangible, so every time you use that credit card you have the feeling that it's me, yeah, yeah, until I get the bill and then I'm like, I don't know if I'm sure it is. For me a lot of flavor a little salty quite crunchy very good these are just snippets Mary's adoptive parents were told that her birth mother was too poor to raise her my adoptive mother um she really thought she was doing something altruistic but one time in Soul Mary He tried to get more information from his adoption agency and what they told him didn't add up the story they gave my adoptive parents was completely false how do you know that?

Because in my adoption papers there is contradictory information, so all the paperwork that was required by US immigration classifies me as an orphan there is no record of my parents but also in that same file in the English translation there are two people identified as my parents Mary He went to his adoption agency Eastern Social Welfare Society several times for an explanation but was never able to provide one. I thought I had the pieces. I really thought I had all the pieces. So to find out—wait a minute, none of that was true—not only do I have to undo a lot of the puzzle.

Adoptions in South Korea began at the end of the Korean War after the Armistice in 1953. The country's orphanages were filled with thousands of war

orphans

and

babies

fathered by

foreign

soldiers. Korea's leaders saw this as a social welfare problem and the children were sent abroad 12

orphans

are up for adoption in the US their benefactor Harry H of Oregon interest arose after Harry and Bertha stopped a Christian couple from the U.S. adopted eight

babies

in 1955, establishing what would become the largest adoption agency in South Korea, one often goes to a family in Corpus Christi, Texas, another to a home in Benton Harbor , Michigan, in the following decades more agencies were created and international adoption became a lucrative business, single mothers were

sham

ed into giving up their newborns. and poor families had few adoption options in 1985, with an average of 24 children a day sent abroad.

The turning point came during the Solar Olympics, when the world's media realized that babies were the leading racing exports. The numbers have decreased most years since many people ask Yo, why are you going to Korea? I came here both to find births and to learn Korean culture, just to be here, to have a daily life on a Saturday morning on the outskirts of Saul Danish adopti and Anderson has come to his Korean. drum class and I was adopted from Denmark when I was 2 years old in 1970, but I returned here a year ago. What if I had stayed in Korea?

What kind of life would he have had? Now I can see that yes, this is maybe the kind of life. of life I would have had, of course, I am interested in finding my Korean family because I have a daughter and it is also very natural for her to know her Korean ancestors. I've come to find out how Anne's search is going, she knows the time. she is running out to find her family. I am now 55 years old, so if my parents are at least 15 or 20 years older, so they are at least 70 years old, of course I can't wait 20 more years and it is even possible that they have already passed, so yes, time. is running out and he believes the answers lie with her adoption agency. stop Children's Services how long have you been searching for your identity?

Yeah, so this I may have been looking for for 20 years. My first trip to Korea was in 204 and I went to the adoption agency. They didn't give me any information how many times have you tried I went to the entire office I think five or six times maybe seven and they always said your file is empty because my adoption records say there is no record for the mother's name and the father then they always just refer it is empty if they found me on the street if they did it then the police should have done a lot of documentation if they handed me over then the father and mother should sign the papers if it was a legal adoption they should have those documents but there is no paper, then the girl just fell from the sky.

She still has a large presence in South Korea and she had practically given up on getting more information from her adoption agency, but she asked if we could try on her behalf one last time. Over the past three weeks I sent them two letters and my Korean colleague called them at least five times and we didn't get a response, so I got my letter again and we're going to try it in person. I don't have too high expectations, but yeah, I hope they show it to me, but who knows, let's see what happens inside. The staff won't show Anne her file today, but she tells her she can come back tomorrow.

They tell me that she will not be allowed to me. join it because I am a journalist and they will not do an interview that was very important that should be today not tomorrow because tomorrow they will simply bring out the important things that is why we had to do it today. there six times before like this and they prepare exactly what they want to show no, it's just a waste of time your time our time is ridiculous you do nothing for us the next morning we return to Halt for another chance oh, we talked for almost 2 hours, so he took the time to say anything.

Were you allowed to watch anything? I could see my documents and then some of them were not the originals so I said where are the originals blah blah blah blah blah blah so them. I more or less missed this and we're so sorry she said that at least 20 times I'm so sorry she didn't say no you're not that's your job this is my life this is my story it's my identity I've been searching for 20 years, Please give me the truth as adults, many adoptees are looking for each other on this Meetup. There are adoptees from all over the world.

It's a chance to connect and compare notes as they try to uncover their past. Peter Müller was adopted in Denmark in 1974, yes. the names are totally different totally different we will help you in everything we can caress has been central to exposing the career adoption practices a couple of years ago each and every one of us was alone in the search for our documents, coming together that makes us stronger and now we want to know the real backstory. Later I meet Peter outside the Korean National Assembly. Politicians often invite us to come and give our opinion on things.

I have been here. I think 13 or 14 times a lot of people ask me. I had a good life in Denmark, why don't you just say forget about things? I think I've had a good life in Denmark, but having a good life has nothing to do with violations of your human rights after finding inconsistencies in his own adoption file Peter gathered other Danish adoptees to examine his, we compiled all the stories and then we decided to go to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Korea and filed a formal complaint with the Commission in the hope that they would investigate the case.

They started with 51 Danish cases and then word spread that they eventually filed 375 adoptee cases from 11 countries in the hills behind the Soul center Peter Müller works in the offices of the NGO adopt D coot shows me the work they have been doing this It's just a small part of the evidence we've brought to the commission from the hundreds of cases Peter has seen now, they're all listed as orphans, but adoption days call this into question. They are orphans and paper, but their biological families are described in the documents and that is. It's strange that you can't be an orphan and have your parents described in your documents at the same time and in some cases here they have even found their biological parents so when they are reunited with their families they find out the truth and the next. the thing is the similarity all the documents all the cases here have exactly the same description in one city at least 52 children received identical stories they were abandoned with a note with their name and date of birth this one also known by the newspaper SLI found in their clothes and here known from the newspaper their clothes that there are many missing children with a paper on their clothes, isn't that exactly the case?

Imagine that in the 1970s in Pan the street should be literally full of baskets with children what it really tells us is that agencies use templates for stories. There is also an admission from an adoption agency that in the falsified documents the adoption agency actually writes that everything was invented only for the adoption, so this document was produced only to take the child abroad. and we have several letters like these Peter says he feels deeply for the adoptive parents who he believes have also been wronged my mother is very sorry uh one of the days she told me uh Peter I want to say I'm sorry because I don't I don't know this, let's say, Of course, he didn't know that and this is not his fault.

This was done by greedy people who wanted money and were literally selling children. By doing this, the authorities would have seen these documents before the child left. The Ministry of Justice adopted, they have made all the official records of the children and then there is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they stamp all the permits to leave the country. Do you think governments around the world would have been able to see these patterns? Yeah uh, if so, I definitely don't understand how a society can allow this to happen, why didn't anyone say anything? South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission is tasked with

investigating

historical human rights violations in this country, has listened to the voices of adopters and taken up their cases.

Amy Jong is the lead investigator of the team

investigating

the

adoptions

. Have adoption agencies been cooperating with you? The commission has until next year to deliver its conclusions. The

foreign

correspondent

requested several interviews with Halt and Eon, but we received no responses. Government. He said he is awaiting the commission's findings and has begun changing adoption laws. Not only adoptees are affected, there are also biological mothers who are looking for answers. Soon you will be one of them. She is a strong advocate for birth mothers and adoptees. Today, my colleague Sue and I have been invited to lunch at her house 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 different dishes more more smells very good let's have lunch our conversation revolves around the family how many children you have May 9, 1975 Hun's daughter disappeared from the front yard of her house how long did you look for her 44 years you never stopped searching she must have been so scared she kept saying please look for my mother and they said you abandoned her finally she reunited in 2019 thanks to a DNA match the agency that handled the adoption was Halt Hunon is now taking legal action against Halt and the government and also tried to perform DNA tests, but only found distant relatives today we accompany her as she tries something new: a appeal on a Korean radio show.

I hope someone in my family recognizes me. I will recognize my history. I know it and it will air with himProfessor E. Gonu. A former missing persons unit detective who is analyzing her case. The only thing we can trust is DNA. We need Koreans to do DNA testing because we can't trust the documents, we can't trust the agencies, but his strongest message is for his family. I would like to tell you that I am sad that I did it. sent abroad to Denmark but I'm not mad but I don't know if they handed me over or if I was kidnapped or I don't know my story so I think it's heartbreaking not to be 50 and not know.

Coming to Korea was to find the things that really matter and are important, that is, knowing family, truth and identity, and although it has been an adjustment, it has been worth it so far to find other people who have had similar experiences and have my experience validated, wait, this happened to me too, you're not losing your mind, you're not going crazy, this is something widespread without answers coming from your agency. Easton Mary also turned to DNA and performed seven different grueling tests. As that process has been, it has been worth it so far because after all that, I found my little brother, the DNA test led you to a brother with a 100% DNA match, so we are not half brothers, we have exactly the same.

Parents, um, yeah, hey, Chase was also adopted in America when he was a baby, they met over a video call last year and now they chat regularly, what have you been up to?, how's work going, You've been playing some online games with friends. Hey, this, I have the side by side, but they compared documents and found even more discrepancies. His story we know is 100% false or I would not exist. The story they gave to his adoptive parents was that um he was also abandoned by a mother. single um who didn't even know who our father apparently went to a bar according to his documents.

I am 23 years older than my brother. That's a very long one night stand. It's not possible. What is your theory? I think maybe initially, the years immediately after the Korean War. It may have been a humanitarian need for children to find families, but as time went on, adoption agencies discovered that there was a significant amount of money people were willing to pay to adopt a child, so they sold us for profit, human trafficking, that's it, yes, that's absolutely What I think is that yes, next year the South Korean governments were hoping to ratify an International Convention on intercountry adoption that makes this practice a last resort.

Any cases would be handled by the government, not private adoption agencies. Adoptee advocates hope the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will lead to more changes. I would hope to see a historical acknowledgment of what happened, an official apology from the government, and then some sort of restitution for what happened there. A strong feeling among those adopted in Denmark around the world that we are now adults, so we will try to do for Korean children today, uh, what no one did for us, so I hope that the commission's investigation will lead to stopping

adoptions

from South Korea while adoptees here await the commission's results.

They are moving on with their lives. Mary and her classmates adopt Dean Nick. are enjoying a perfect Sunday at Soul Chicken and Beer by the Han River it's a bit hot which is strange we've had so many strange things like the weather back and forth so this one says the community adopt D here it is growing and the momentum for their cause is building for me, I think I'm a newcomer to the game, so I moved here eight or nine months ago and I know there have been adoptions. I have lived here for some up to even 10 or 15 years.

Yeah, it's definitely been a rollercoaster, I have good days where I feel like I've learned a lot and made a lot of connections and I feel great. There are also days when I am flat. on the ground I can't breathe I can't move I can't handle anything and it's one thing, but every day and every new piece of information is one step closer to completing the puzzle, so yeah, your brother, that's exciting. I'm excited for you, it's something very important. I'm meeting him in person in June for the first time and his favorite food is fried chicken and I thought it's definitely mine.