The South Korean adoption agencies sent children like “luggage” abroad for decades and referred to some as orphans when they had parents and sent alternative babies when infants died before overseas, said a truth committee on Wednesday.
After a two -year investigation, the South Korean Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, which was authorized by the country’s parliament, recommended an official apology to the government, carried out follow -up examinations and carried out the victims.
In the cases of at least 56 adopted from a petition, which was submitted by 367, which were sent to eleven countries between 1964 and 1999, including the United States, France, Denmark, to overseas, human rights violations were found.
In recent years, several European countries have examined possible illegal activities in their international adoption practices. Some have published their findings or beaten independent bodies. Canada doesn’t have to follow.
CBC News spoke to more than 20 adopted in Canada and all over the world, which question the accuracy of their adoption papers from South Korea.
At the presentation of its findings, the Commission published a picture of babies that wrapped in ceilings and overturned on a plane in seats in 1984, with the title “children sent abroad”.
It found that the South Korean adoption agencies were complied with the demands of foreign agencies to send a defined number of children every month.
Post -war acceptance
The devastation of the Korean War in the early 1950s led to adoption programs in overseas for Biracial Korean babies that were generated by Western soldiers. This quickly grew to “exported the CBC in” abundant conditions “, which were in” plenty of care “.
The Commission said that the South Korean government had neglected its responsibility to block supervision and blocking of “misconduct by adoption agencies” such as fraudulent orphan registrations, manipulations and insufficient review of adoptive parents.
Adoption agencies received no proper consent to adoption, falsified documents to present babies as orphans when they knew parents, and when some babies died before they were sent to overseas, other babies were sent to their names, said the Commission.
“Almost 50 years after the Korean War, the government prioritized Interland’s adoption as an inexpensive alternative to strengthening domestic child protection policy,” said the Commission.
Investigation since 2020
The Independent Commission was established in 2020 by a revised Parliamentary Act, whereby the judgment and opposition parties named four people to form the eight members who sat under a chair named by the President.
The office of acting president in South Korea could not be reached immediately for a comment on his report.
After decades of assumption that they were orphans, several Korean Canadians learned that their biological parents may still be alive. The Priscilla Ki Sun Hwang from CBC helps how to come here and why some Canada have ignored evidence of botched adoption papers.
In addition to the recommendation of an official apology, the Commission also called for a comprehensive survey on the citizenship status of the adopted and all corresponding political measures, remedial measures for victims whose identities were fake to ratify the HAG adoption convention, and to ensure an obligation of adoption agencies to restore the rights of adoptions.
“These violations have never taken place,” said Park Sun-Young, Chairman of the Commission. “We have to come together and adopted the identity crises that many adopted are exposed.”
