English Version of The TRC 2 “Human Rights Violation In Intercountry Adoption” Report (Download PDF Above).

English Version of The TRC 2 “Comprehensive Report”
(Download PDF Above).

Posted to Paperslip on November 18th, 2025 (12:35 am PST / US)
Updated 1:21 am PST / US.
Thank you to a Paperslip Contributor for some links and clarification.

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South Korea’s Second Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC 2) has finally released the English version of its final report on the 56 Intercountry Adoptee cases in which human rights violations were confirmed.

TRC 2 has also released a “Comprehensive Report” about the overall TRC 2 investigation, which was never originally intended to investigate Overseas Adoption.

The TRC 2’s recognition of the human rights violation known as “Switching” owes much to the years of work carried out through Paperslip and by its co-founder since 2018.

Please click the links above to download the PDFs.

For more information from the TRC 2 website, please see this link.

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For a Korean language white paper written by TRC 2 Investigator Park Geon-Tae please click here (PDF).
See the direct source link here (this Korean link may not load but the PDF is linked above).

See excerpt below.
Thank you to a Paperslip Contributor for the link.
(Translation via ChatGPT):

“Human Rights Violations in Overseas Adoption
Is Only “Illegality” a Serious Human Rights Violation?
(By) Investigator Park Geon-Tae

The applicants in the overseas adoption human rights violation cases were people adopted abroad to 11 different countries between 1964 and 1999. In most cases, during the push for overseas adoption, so-called “orphan family registers”—created in the format of establishing a fictitious family—were generated in bulk. The applicants argued that they were victims of violations of their “right to know their identity,” as they ended up with dual family registers, had their identities replaced with those of completely different individuals, were adopted without the explicit consent of their biological parents, or had documents falsified—such as being recorded as abandoned infants after being found as missing children—which resulted in changes or loss of their original identity and information about their biological families.

Difficulties in the Investigation Process

Article 2(1)4 of the Framework Act on Clearing up Past Incidents defines the scope of truth-finding as:

“Deaths, injuries, and disappearances that occurred between 15 August 1945 and the period of authoritarian rule due to illegal or significantly unjust exercise of public authority that destroyed the constitutional order, and other serious human rights violations and fabricated cases.”

The Commission designated cases falling under this provision as “Type 2-Ra,” and a large portion of Division 2’s caseload fits this category. Here, “illegal or significantly unjust exercise of public authority” refers to situations where the state bears responsibility for the cause of human rights violations, and “deaths, injuries, disappearances, other serious human rights violations, and fabricated cases” refer to the resulting violations attributable to that state responsibility. Investigation results must therefore be organized around state responsibility and human rights violations.

The overseas adoption human rights cases posed difficulties on both fronts.

Investigating state responsibility

Division 7, which often handled cases involving mass confinement facilities, issued its first findings on the Brothers Home case. The report concluded that Ministerial Directive No. 410 of the Ministry of Home Affairs had defined “vagrants” extremely broadly—such as “all vagrants who undermine sound social and urban order” or “those who exert harmful influence on society”—thus enabling arbitrary police crackdowns and containing unconstitutional elements that severely infringed basic rights. Because forced confinement and facility operation were based on Directive No. 410, the investigation established state responsibility. Reports on most other mass confinement facilities also described state responsibility on the basis of the directive’s unconstitutionality.

At the early stage of the overseas adoption investigation, the team attempted a similar approach—examining whether the laws or regulations underpinning the adoption system were themselves unconstitutional or illegal. The legal foundations for overseas adoption were the Civil Act, the Orphan Adoption Special Act, and the Adoption Special Act. The Civil Act stipulates that adoption transfers rights and obligations regarding the child to the adoptive parents—indicating that adoption is a matter between private individuals. The special acts, intended to promote domestic and overseas adoptions, were merely “special provisions” supplementing the Civil Act. None of these laws define state responsibility or authority. Moreover, they explicitly assign overseas adoption work to private adoption agencies, not the government. Thus, relying solely on these laws made it extremely difficult to argue that the state had exercised public authority unlawfully.

A different investigative framework was needed—one that could uncover how long-term state policies facilitated overseas adoption and address state responsibility beyond narrow legality analysis.

Nevertheless, the team first attempted to identify illegality at a more micro level. Overseas adoption involves numerous stakeholders: children, biological parents, guardians, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, local governments, courts, the Ministry of Justice, police, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adoption agencies, child welfare facilities, and corresponding entities in receiving countries, making the administrative process extremely complex.

Investigating the Human Rights Violations

The right to identity claimed by applicants refers to the right to be recognized socially and legally, and to maintain and express core identity elements such as one’s name, nationality, and family relationships. This right was first articulated in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and has been protected through various international treaties, including child rights conventions. Recently, both the Constitutional Court¹ and the Supreme Court² of Korea affirmed the “right to birth registration,” which forms the foundation of the right to identity, as a constitutional right.

In most investigations, fact-finding begins with victims’ own testimony. In mass confinement facility cases, the experiences described by victims from the same institution were often similar, and their consistent, detailed testimonies greatly aided in identifying human rights violations—sometimes even serving as direct proof.

However, applicants in overseas adoption cases were almost entirely unable to testify about the violations they experienced. On average, they were adopted abroad at 46 months of age and had no memory of the adoption process. With testimony effectively impossible, the investigation had to rely entirely on records. But this made it extremely difficult to clearly reveal how their right to know their identity had been violated.

The investigation team therefore sought illegal acts documented within the adoption process—such as consent given by unqualified persons, instances where biological parents’ consent could not be verified, dual family registers, intentional identity substitution, and other procedural violations.

Preparing Individual Truth-Finding Reports and Attempt to Change Case Category

Individual truth-finding reports focus on human rights violations suffered by each applicant. In this case, violations were primarily identified through analysis of adoption records. Timelines were constructed for each child—from birth, adoption intake, exit from the country, to acquisition of nationality in the receiving country—and the types of violations discovered were classified.

Because investigations relied only on records rather than applicants’ personal accounts, the nature of harm differed significantly across cases. The volume and type of records varied depending on how each adoption was processed, leading to major differences in available information and identifiable violations. Since procedures also varied across time periods, receiving countries, and intake routes, each case needed individual examination to determine procedural errors. Investigators were then required to decide whether each identified violation constituted a serious human rights violation caused by unlawful exercise of public authority—an impossible task resembling drawing a passing line that ranked violations.

Internally, it was expected that only about 30–40% of cases would qualify.

Yet applying strict legal criteria made it impossible to adequately address the core human rights issue: violation of the right to know one’s identity. For example, cases involving dual family registers or identity substitution had abundant preserved records, making illegality easy to identify. But many more cases lacked such records entirely—such as:

• children referred for adoption by unrelated individuals without documentation,

• children found by police but referred directly to adoption agencies without attempts to locate family,

• children allegedly found outside adoption agencies with no related documentation from prior facilities.

From the perspective of identity rights, these cases—leaving almost no information about the child’s identity—represent greater harm, yet provided less evidence of illegality and thus were less likely to be recognized.

In group cases handled by the Commission, decisions are based on core violations common to all victims. Even if experiences vary by individual circumstances, being forcibly institutionalized or denied due process constitutes a shared violation. Overseas adoptees similarly share a common harm: their identities were unknown, misrepresented, or lost for decades. Whether the violation stemmed from procedural differences should not determine recognition.

Thus, distinguishing each case solely by procedural legality hinders exposing the systemic issue: violation of the right to identity.

At the outset, the case was categorized under Article 2(1)4 (“serious human rights violations caused by illegal exercise of public authority”). But this approach risked excluding broader, historically significant violations. After deliberation, the team proposed reclassifying the case under Article 2(1)6:

“historically significant events that contribute to national unity by establishing historical legitimacy and promoting reconciliation.”

Under this provision, strict proof of state responsibility is not required, making broader recognition possible. But such a change raised concerns: applicants might lose opportunities for judicial remedies such as compensation if illegality were not formally established.

Ultimately, 98 cases were submitted for decision, with the plan to explain the classification issue orally to the subcommittee and let commissioners decide.

Decision-Making

The investigation team expected a modified decision, but the 89th Subcommittee approved the original submission in full. It held that overseas adoption was an unlawful and unjust system created and poorly supervised by the state, and thus all 98 cases should be recognized. Lack of records preventing applicants from discovering their identities constituted a serious human rights violation. Compensation, it held, should be decided individually by courts.

However, during deliberation at the full Commission, discussion moved toward the exact concern the team had: determining which individual cases could be recognized. At the 101st plenary session, some commissioners argued that not all applicants’ identity violations could be recognized, and that findings must meet standards strong enough to prevail in court. They insisted on distinguishing cases with clearly documented illegality—such as creating orphan registers despite known biological parent records. Others argued that loss of identity due to missing records constituted a serious violation for all. The Commission decided to revise and resubmit.

At the 102nd plenary session, commissioners voted to recognize only 56 of the 98 cases, arguing that the Commission’s credibility would suffer if courts rejected its findings. Recognized cases involved: existence of biological parent records, identity substitution, failure to follow consent procedures, insufficient public notice in verifying caregivers, or adoptive parents not meeting legal requirements. Cases involving identity loss due to missing records—previously considered serious violations—were not approved.

The remaining 42 cases were deferred, and a total of 311 cases received investigation-suspension decisions.

Problems with the Decision Standards

Setting “illegality sufficient to win in court” as the benchmark raises several issues:

1. The Act does not limit truth-finding to illegal conduct.
   Its purpose is to uncover hidden or distorted truth—not merely legally actionable facts. The Commission narrowed the legally defined scope by focusing only on illegality.

2. Legal truth is not the whole truth.
   Human rights violations do not arise only from illegal acts. In cases spanning decades and involving numerous state and private actors, identifying a single overarching illegal act is often impossible. Focusing on technical illegality obscures the broader truth required for reconciliation.

3. Compensation is not the only path to redress.
   Legal liability can be important, but not all healing requires litigation. Given the difficulty of winning state compensation in overseas adoption cases, the Commission should not limit its findings to strictly illegal acts. Measures such as improved access to adoption records, expanded root-search support, and state-led post-adoption services can better help victims.

Out of 367 cases, 98 were submitted and only 56 recognized. By numbers alone, the outcome was poor. The team attempted to change the case type to enable broader recognition of identity rights but failed. The plenary reversed the subcommittee’s broader view and did exactly what the team feared—recognizing only cases with clear procedural illegality.

Initially, I considered this a failed investigation. Applicants asked what the suspension decisions meant and what they should do next; some even came to Korea in person. But instead of expressing disappointment, they thanked us for shedding light on the systemic issues of overseas adoption—even though their individual cases had not been recognized, they had not found their biological parents, nor received full adoption records. Their understanding helped me realize the investigation had not been a total failure. They recognized the effort to highlight the structural problem—even the attempted but unsuccessful category change.

Looking back as the Commission’s term ends, I feel we should have set clearer goals from the very beginning. During the investigation, we focused too narrowly on identifying clear illegality; by the time we recognized the limits of this approach and attempted a broader narrative, it was too late. The report reflected the constraints of two years of investigation, and deliberations proceeded in the Commission’s usual manner. To produce a different result, we needed a clearer, more specific investigative aim from the outset.

This reflection should guide the Commission’s 3rd term. Many argue the 3rd Commission must overcome the limits of petition-based investigations and make active use of ex officio investigations. But investigators must think deeper than that. They must set clear, concrete objectives for the themes and directions of ex officio investigations. For example, in overseas adoption cases, ex officio goals could be: broad recognition of the right to know one’s identity or identifying additional human rights violations such as those affecting biological parents.”

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A Personal Post-Script To The TRC 2 Investigation Into Overseas Adoption (2022-2025).