How Two US KSS Adoptees Figured Out How To Obtain KSS’ Formerly Secret ”Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”
In July 2021.

AND:

How KSS’ Formerly Secret
”Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” Became Key Evidence In The Truth and Reconciliation of Commission (TRC / TRCK) Interim Report of March 26th, 2025 Thanks To The Uncredited Years Long Efforts of Paperslip.

Prior to July 2021, the majority of KSS Adoptees had NO IDEA that apart from what I coined in 2021 as the “ENGLISH Adoptive Child Study Summary”, KSS had secretly kept a hidden document which I coined in 2021 as the “KOREAN Adoptive Child Study Summary”.

Until July 2021, most KSS Adoptees were only aware of a single document known as the “Adoptive Child Study Summary”—now referred to as the “English Adoptive Child Study Summary”. However, it has since come to light that KSS secretly maintained a secret version in Korean, now known as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”.

While a few KSS Adoptees may have obtained what I coined in 2021 as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”—likely only if they visited KSS in person *prior to 2012—KSS has never informed Adoptees that this document could be requested and obtained simply by filling out the correct forms, checking the appropriate boxes, and knowing to ask for it by the appropriate name via email. We had to figure it out accidentally for ourselves.

Even now that Paperslip has publicly outlined the process for obtaining the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary,” KSS remains unlikely to mention the document—or explain how to obtain it—even if an Adoptee visits KSS in person without already knowing it exists.

And of course, since the vast majority of KSS Adoptees and their adoptive parents were never told that the KSS “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” existed, there was no way for KSS Adoptees to be able to request or obtain this document until we accidentally figured it out.

That changed in July 2021, when two US KSS Adoptees - myself and one other US KSS Adoptee who prefers to remain anonymous, and who is not part of Paperslip - only accidentally happened to figure out how to request and obtain KSS’ formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” during the course of a conversation on a KSS Adoptee forum of which we are both members.

*NOTE: Revisions to the 2012 Special Adoption Law—originally intended by Korean Adoptee activists to ease the process of obtaining adoption records—tragically had the opposite effect. In a last-minute move, Korean legislators altered the legal language in ways that were not disclosed to Adoptee advocates before the law passed, ultimately making it even more difficult for Adoptees to access their own records.

Given this post-2012 context—when it had become exceedingly difficult for most KSS Adoptees to access their adoption records—the discovery of how to request and obtain the previously secret KSS “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” in July 2021 marked a major breakthrough in their ongoing, often exhausting struggle to reclaim documents that rightfully belong to them.

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View the key excerpts from a July 2021 conversation in which two U.S. KSS Adoptees (myself and another anonymous Adoptee) accidentally discovered how to access KSS’s previously hidden “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” (partially redacted for privacy) (PDF).

*Please note that the anonymous US KSS Adoptee whose post initiated this important conversation—and whose name is redacted in the PDF linked above—is not affiliated with Paperslip, nor did this Adoptee participate in the writing of this post.

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While we can’t say with statistical certainty how many KSS Adoptees have successfully requested and obtained their formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” thanks to Paperslip, we estimate the number to be in the hundreds—possibly even thousands. The exact figure may never be known.

Countless hours have been volunteered through Paperslip to review the forms of any KSS Adoptees seeking our assistance. In doing so, Paperslip has filled a gap that rightfully should be KSS’s responsibility. Personally, I’ve allowed myself to be turned into an unpaid “KSS social worker” for years.

However, we have personally reviewed hundreds of KSS request forms—free of charge—to help Adoptees check for errors before submission to KSS. We’ve offered this free form review service for years, because, egregiously, KSS will not provide Adoptees with their “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” or other documents unless the request is submitted with precise formatting and wording. If a KSS Adoptee is unaware of Paperslip and of our instructions, then they are almost certain not to be able to obtain their “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” from KSS.

This free support by Paperslip has likely played a significant role in the high number of successful document requests by KSS Adoptees, as many who follow Paperslip’s instructions are ultimately able to access their records. Not knowing how to fill out KSS’ forms properly can have dire consequences. For example, KSS Adoptees who intend to request a birth family search often neglect to check the correct boxes on KSS’ forms, which could potentially cost them years of wasted time - as KSS never double checks with Adoptees if their forms are filled out correctly! Without our help, many KSS Adoptees likely won’t ever even realize that they completed their forms incorrectly, possibly with dire unforeseen consequences.

As a result of Paperslip’s diligence in assisting KSS Adoptees in obtaining their “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” and other documents, a substantial amount of KSS-related evidence has found its way into the March 26, 2025 Interim Report by the TRC / TRCK.

Since its founding in 2020, Paperslip has patiently educated KSS Adoptees on the differences between the English and Korean versions of the Adoptive Child Study Summary documents. This ongoing effort has played a significant—though egregiously unacknowledged—role in shaping the TRC 2 Investigation into Overseas Adoption (2022–2025).

See Related:

The TRCK’s Interim Report Of March 26th, 2025 Owes Much To The Uncredited Work of Paperslip

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Below: My own formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”, which I found in the back of my file at KSS in 2018. It was a struggle in 2018 to obtain the right to photograph my adoption file from KSS, and for years, I did not know what to call this document, as the Hanja title—入養兒童調書—does not translate directly to “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary.” Keep in mind, this was 2018—ChatGPT didn’t exist yet to help with translation, and even a professional Korean translator I consulted couldn’t provide an exact match. Eventually, I realized on my own that KSS likely referred to this document as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary,” based on the corresponding U.S. version, which I coined as the “English Adoptive Child Study Summary” in July 2021. The US version of this English document only says “Adoptive Child Study Summary” at the top. For European KSS Adoptees, the title of the equivalent English document is often something different. For example, The Danish equivalent of what is called in the US the “English Adoptive Child Study Summary” is often in DENMARK called “Information for ADOPTION in Denmark of a foreign child”.

So it’s no accident that a US KSS Adoptee (myself) coined the term “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”, as this was a term I created based off of my known US KSS document, the English “Adoptive Child Study Summary”. In 2021, I coined the term “English Adoptive Child Study Summary” to differentiate it from the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”, which we hadn’t known until then was the way in which KSS colloquially referred to this formerly secret document.

Please note: The style of the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” changed over time. Below is just page 1 of 3 pages of this particular style of the document. Click here to see ALL known styles of the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”.

Above: By July 2021, myself and one other (anonymous) US KSS Adoptee had figured out by accident that the document which I had discovered in the back of my KSS adoption file in 2018 with the Hanja title 入養兒童調書 was what KSS referred to colloquially as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”. Ever since this accidental co-discovery in July 2021, I have been relentlessly using Paperslip to educate KSS Adoptees about how to request BOTH a birth family search AND their formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” at the SAME time from KSS.

Unfortunately with the movement of ALL Korean Adoption Agency files to the Korean Government Agency NCRC (National Center for the Rights of the Child) starting July 19th, 2025, we have significant concerns that KSS Adoptees in the future may have more difficulty in obtaining this form from NCRC / KAS. For this reason, since July 2021, we have been relentlessly advising KSS Adoptees to request BOTH a birth family search AND their formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” at the same time from KSS.

My efforts through Paperslip to assist KSS Adoptees in requesting and obtaining their formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” is a key reason why—despite KSS being the smallest of the four major Korean adoption agencies, and HOLT being the largest—the March 26th, 2025 Interim Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of the Republic of Korea (TRC/TRCK) is dominated by evidence related to the KSS “English Adoptive Child Study Summary” and “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” documents.

The fact that KSS-related evidence dominates the TRC Interim Report is all the more remarkable considering that KSS ceased its adoption operations in 2012—while HOLT continues to operate in the adoption business to this day (2025).

Despite HOLT being a significantly larger and longer-established Korean Adoption Agency than KSS, the prominence of evidence concerning KSS—particularly the formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”—in the TRC/TRCK’s March 26th, 2025 Interim Report is striking. This visibility owes much to my work since 2018, as well as to Paperslip’s contributions since 2020.

Above: This screenshot from a July 28th, 2021 conversation (see full conversation in the PDF linked above) shows the moment when two U.S. KSS Adoptees unintentionally discovered how to request and obtain the previously unreleased KSS document known as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”. By the end of the conversation, I realized that what I had been referring to as the “Korean Facing File” since 2018 was, in fact, officially called the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” by KSS. This screenshot, taken from Paperslip’s homepage, also shows that by 2021, I had already begun informing fellow KSS Adoptees about the differences between the English and Korean versions of the Adoptive Child Study Summary, as well as how to request the Korean version directly from KSS.

Two US KSS Adoptees - myself and one other US KSS Adoptee who wishes to remain anonymous, accidentally figured out how to obtain KSS’ formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” during the course of a conversation on the KSS forum of which we are both members, and which I have served as an Administrator since around 2018. This conversation began on July 28th, 2021. While I had co-founded Paperslip.org around January 2020, this conversation was the ignition point for Paperslip’s unrelenting mission to make sure that as many KSS Adoptees as possible knew how to request and obtain BOTH a birth family search AND their formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” (along with other documents) from KSS.

The fact that the March 26th, 2025 Interim Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea (TRC / TRCK) is DOMINATED by evidence relating to the KSS “English Adoptive Child Study Summary” and “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” documents owes an enormous debt to my efforts through Paperslip since 2021 to spread the word to KSS Adoptees about how to obtain this important, and previously unobtainable document from KSS. That mission would never have been possible had not two important things happened:

1. When I first visited KSS in Seoul in Summer 2018, after having had to argue with the KSS social worker to be able to do so, I was able to successfully photograph my entire Korean Adoption file, including my own “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”, which was in the back of my KSS file. At the time however, I had no idea what this document was called. I do not read / speak Korean or Hanja, and the text at the top of this particular style of this form (there are others which I have now documented) says: 入養兒童調書. Of course, I had no idea what this Hanja text meant, and until July 2021, I was referring to this document as the “Korean Facing File”. I had no idea that it bore any relationship to what I have since coined in 2021 as the “English Adoptive Child Study Summary” - the title of the “English facing” document provided to nearly all prospective adoptive parents in the West at the beginning stages of an adoption process through KSS and its corresponding Western Partner Adoption Agency.

2. Had the anonymous US KSS Adoptee not shared on July 28th, 2021—via a KSS forum we both belong to—that she had requested her English “Adoptive Child Study Summary” but instead accidentally been sent by KSS what I had, until then, referred to as the “Korean Facing File,” we would never have known that KSS informally referred to the 入養兒童調書 (and similar future versions of this document) as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary.” As a result, hundreds of KSS Adoptees would have remained unaware that this document could be requested and obtained from KSS. Moreover, this critical evidence might never have appeared so prominently in the March 26, 2025 Interim Report of the TRC/TRCK.

Key Take-Away: Sharing Is Caring.

I want to emphasize how crucial it is for Adoptees to share information with one another. If an anonymous US KSS Adoptee hadn’t posted in a KSS Adoptee forum that she had accidentally received what we now know as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” when she had actually requested the “English Adoptive Child Study Summary”, things might have turned out very differently.

When I saw her post on July 28, 2021, I realized that a document I had discovered in the back of my own KSS file in 2018—titled 入養兒童調書 —was the same document colloquially referred to by KSS as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”. Had I not made that connection, and had I not been committed to relentlessly sharing how to request and obtain this document from KSS, hundreds, if not thousands, of KSS Adoptees might never have obtained it since 2021.

This is not to diminish the essential contribution of the anonymous US KSS Adoptee whose initial discovery was pivotal. However, it’s important to note that this individual has not remained actively engaged in the community nor participated in Paperslip’s ongoing efforts to widely share this information with other KSS Adoptees since 2021.

That said, the entire KSS Adoptee community owes a significant debt to this co-discovery, which revealed the process for obtaining the once-hidden “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” from KSS. This document has since become a vital piece of evidence—appearing in abundance in the March 26th, 2025 Interim Report of the TRC. Without the shared efforts of the anonymous US KSS Adoptee, myself and Paperslip, that would not have been possible.

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The Actions Of DKRG (Danish Korean Rights Group) In Relation To The KSS “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”.

When I first set out to investigate the switch cases involving myself and my twin, I never imagined that the research I would uncover—particularly regarding KSS K-Numbers and Systemic Switching—would become so valuable that DKRG would try to claim credit for it. And I had no idea that my 2018 discovery of KSS’ formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”and the subsequent efforts to publicize the steps to obtaining this document through Paperslip would ultimately play a central role in the evidence included in the March 26th, 2025 Interim Report of the TRC / TRCK.

As I have demonstrated here, DKRG did not even form until April or May 2022, which is nearly one year after myself and one other anonymous US KSS Adoptee had figured out how to request and obtain KSS’ formerly secret “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” in July 2021. DKRG was not formed until nearly four years after I first discovered the KSS document—which I initially referred to as the “Korean Facing File”—in the back of my KSS file in 2018. I later renamed it the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” in July 2021.

It was never DKRG that discovered or brought awareness to the KSS Adoptee community about the existence of a previously secret document referred to as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary.” While I have never seen DKRG publicly claim credit for the discovery of this document, the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” has appeared in media where DKRG assiduously avoids identifying the name of the document, the way it was discovered and by whom, and the fact that Paperslip could help KSS Adoptees to obtain the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”. (Of course, I’m not privy to DKRG’s private forums, having been inexplicably blocked from all of them since December 7th, 2022, so I can’t speak to whether they’ve attempted to claim credit in private). What I have noticed, however, is that since DKRG’s formation in May 2022, they have never ONCE publicly referenced the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” by name. Nor have they ever mentioned Paperslip in any media appearance—despite being well aware of my research into KSS since 2018, as well as of Paperslip itself. Given the numerous media opportunities DKRG has actively pursued between 2022 and 2025, this continued silence marks a significant missed opportunity for KSS Adoptees.

Sadly, this is likely because DKRG’s leadership couldn’t take credit for the discovery of the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” without my knowledge—or without risking that I’d speak out, after they blocked me out of the TRC movement on Decemeber 7th, 2022. And since they seem unwilling to share the spotlight with anyone else who’s done meaningful work, they’ve simply chosen not to mention the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” by name. Had they approached me about publicizing the fact that KSS Adoptees could request and obtain their “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary”, I would have gladly agreed. Instead, DKRG excluded me from the TRC movement on December 7th, 2022—the very day the TRC investigation into Overseas Adoption began—in order to avoid giving me credit for any of the work I had been doing since 2018 independently, and any of the work done through Paperslip since 2020. Some call it politics—we see it clearly: Narcissism lies at the heart of DKRG's leadership. Whatever issues DKRG’s (remaining) leaders may have, it’s unfortunate that they’ve chosen to behave this way, as their wholly unwarranted actions have likely deprived some KSS Adoptees of the chance to reunite with their birth families.

The missed opportunities for collaboration between Paperslip and DKRG were not due to any fault of ours. I was egregiously excluded from the TRC movement by DKRG on December 7th, 2022—without any prior disagreement—there was absolutely no justification for my being blocked, ghosted, discredited, and later egregiously lied about by DKRG, after they first approached me to help them in August 2022, which I gladly did. It’s now crystal clear that the exclusion was driven by their attempts to take credit for my work and the work that I’ve done through Paperslip. In hindsight, understanding more about DKRG’s behavior and motivations, we realize that had we known their true modus operandi, we would never have agreed to support them in the first place.

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See Related:

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea’s (TRCK’s) Interim Report Of March 26th, 2025 Owes Much To The Egregiously Uncredited Work of Paperslip

How Systemic Switching of Orphans by S. Korean Adoption Agencies Was Brought To Public Light