The South Korean adoption agencies sent children abroad as “luggage” for decades, labeling some as orphans when they had parents and sent alternative babies when infants died before heading abroad, a truth commission said on Wednesday.
After a two -year investigation, the South Korea Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was empowered by the country’s parliament, recommended that the government are making official apology, setting up follow -up surveys and putting the rescue measures in place for the victims.
He declared that he had concluded human rights violations in the event of at least 56 adopted from a petition filed by 367 adopted which were sent abroad between 1964 and 1999 to 11 countries, including the United States, France, Denmark and Sweden.
In recent years, several European countries have investigated possible illicit activities in their international adoption practices. Some have published their conclusions or have struck independent organizations. Canada has not yet followed suit.
CBC News spoke to more than 20 adopted in Canada and in the world that question the accuracy of their adoption documents from South Korea.
By presenting its conclusions, the Commission published a photo of babies wrapped in blankets and attached to seats on a airliner in 1984, with the title “Children sent abroad as luggage”.
He noted that the South Korean adoption agencies were respected to requests from foreign agencies to send a fixed number of children each month.
Post-war adoptions
The devastation of the Korean War in the early 1950s led to adoption programs abroad for Biracial Baracial babies caused by Western soldiers. This quickly developed to “export Korean infants” which were in “abundant supply”, according to the internal correspondence of the Canadian government obtained by CBC.
The Commission said the South Korean government has neglected its responsibility to provide surveillance and block “misconduct by adoption agencies” such as fraudulent orphaned recordings, falsification of identity and inadequate verification of adoptive parents.
The adoption agencies did not receive appropriate consent for adoption, falsified documents to present babies as orphans when they knew parents and when some babies died before being sent abroad, other babies were sent in their name, said the Commission.
“For almost 50 years following the Korean War, the government has prioritized the adoption of intervention as a profitable alternative to strengthen interior child protection policies,” said the Commission.
Investigate since 2020
The independent commission was set up by a revised act of the Parliament in 2020, with the parties in power and the opposition which each appoint four people to compose the eight members seated under a president appointed by the president.
The office of the acting president of South Korea could not be immediately adopted to comment on his report.
After decades to believe that they were orphans, several Korean Canadians have learned that their biological parents can always be alive. Priscilla Ki Sun Hwang of CBC helps to discover how they arrived here and why some say that Canada has ignored the evidence of sloppy adoption paperwork.
In addition to recommending official apology, the Commission also called for a complete survey on the status of citizenship of adoptors and all corresponding political measures, appeals for victims whose identity has been falsified, rapid ratification of the Hague adoption agreement, and to guarantee a commitment of adoption agencies to restore the rights of adopted.
“These violations should never have occurred,” said Park Sun-Young, president of the committee. “We must bring together adoptive countries and adopt in the same way to approach the identity attacks that many adopted are confronted.”
