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Posted to Paperslip on October 5th, 2025.
Originally published to People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy on October 1st, 2025.
Translation via ChatGPT.
Please click the link above to be taken to the original article (Korean).

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“[Trend 2] Overseas Adoption: Significance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Decision and Future Tasks
Hwang Pil-kyu | Attorney, GongGam Human Rights Law Foundation

Introduction

On March 25, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Chairperson Park Sun-young) held its 102nd meeting and found that the human rights of adoptees were violated in the overseas adoption process in 56 of the 367 reviewed cases. These violations were due to the state's neglect of its constitutional duty to protect basic human rights, specifically: inadequate legislation, poor oversight and management, and failure to follow administrative procedures. The Commission concluded that many children were sent abroad in ways that violated both the Constitution and international agreements protecting adoptee rights.
As for the remaining 269 cases, the Commission decided to suspend investigations at its 107th meeting on April 22, expressing hope that the third iteration of the Commission will handle these cases appropriately.

This marks an official acknowledgment by a state agency of serious and significant problems in the overseas adoption process. However, with over 140,000 children adopted overseas through authorized agencies, many questions remain. How much more abuse and injustice in overseas adoptions will be uncovered, evaluated, and addressed—and how far can such investigations and remedies realistically go?

Illegal Overseas Adoptions as a Global Phenomenon

Human rights violations in overseas adoptions are a global issue. A 2017 statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children and a 2022 joint statement by UN human rights treaty bodies and special procedures explicitly addressed this problem.

Illegal adoptions, which result in devastating consequences for victims’ lives and rights, often involve fraud in adoption suitability determinations, forgery or coercion, lack of proper parental consent, and excessive financial gains and corruption within adoption agencies.

In many cases, such illegal adoptions arise from broader abuses, including child abduction, sale and trafficking, enforced disappearances, and the forced transfer of children—often facilitated by systemic flaws in child protection systems and, in some instances, state officials or policies enabling such practices.

Thanks to the ongoing efforts of overseas adoptees, several countries have in recent years conducted comprehensive investigations into these issues—including on-site visits to South Korea—and have released reports elevating illegal overseas adoption to the level of a global human rights concern.

  • The Netherlands published a report in 2021,

  • Denmark in 2024,

  • Sweden is expected to release theirs in 2025,

  • and Norway plans to do so by the end of this year (2025).
    Although not related to international adoption, the UK’s Joint Committee on Human Rights published a report in 2023 analyzing decades of problematic adoption practices involving children born to unmarried mothers.
    In contrast, the annual reports submitted by the U.S. Department of State to Congress focus solely on promoting overseas adoptions.

International human rights law—including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on Enforced Disappearances, and the Genocide Convention—outlines both the rights infringed upon and the possible crimes involved in illegal overseas adoptions.

Such practices violate the child’s best interests, the right to protection without discrimination from family, society, and the state, the right to nationality and identity, and the right to know and be cared for by one’s parents and not be separated from them against their will.

Illegal overseas adoption not only constitutes trafficking or enforced disappearance—it may also risk crossing into crimes such as genocide or crimes against humanity.

Principles and State Obligations for Preventing Illegal Overseas Adoptions

Based on the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and its General Comments, concluding observations on countries like Switzerland and India, the Convention on Enforced Disappearances, General Comments by the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances, and the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy for Victims, the core principles and obligations for preventing illegal overseas adoption can be summarized as follows:

  1. The best interests of the child must be the foremost consideration in all adoption processes.

  2. All domestic alternative care options must be thoroughly explored before intercountry adoption is considered—and it should only be a last resort.

  3. Inappropriate financial gain from adoption processes must be prevented.

  4. All actors involved in intercountry adoption must be qualified, properly authorized, and all consents must be verified by competent authorities.

    • In particular, the backgrounds and documents of children designated as orphans must be thoroughly verified.

    • For example, if adoption serves the purpose of finding a child for adoptive parents, rather than finding a family for a child, it violates this principle.

States must guarantee victims of illegal overseas adoption the right to truth and the right to reclaim their identity.

Regardless of whether victims have filed official complaints, there must be full access to relevant information and sufficient financial and human resources to conduct comprehensive, impartial, thorough, and effective investigations.

Through this, violations of the victims' rights and the perpetrators' responsibilities must be identified, victims must be traced and identified, and their lost identities and damages must be acknowledged and communicated.

Illegal adoption must be treated as a crime, with no statute of limitations.

Securing the right to remedies for victims of illegal overseas adoption is a core obligation of the state.

Remedies include more than just financial compensation and encompass:

  • Restitution (e.g., annulment of the adoption in line with the child’s best interests),

  • Compensation (for all economically measurable damages),

  • Rehabilitation (including medical, psychological, and social services), and

  • Satisfaction (e.g., full public disclosure of the truth, formal apologies, commemoration and remembrance, and legal reforms to prevent recurrence).

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s decision on human rights violations in the overseas adoption process tragically reveals how thoroughly these principles were ignored and violated, and how the state has failed not only to fulfill its duties but even to acknowledge them.

Significance of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Decision

The significance and key contents of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)’s decision can be summarized as follows:

First, the decision publicly confirmed that illegal overseas adoption was a structural outcome of the state's ongoing misuse of public power. The facts verified by the TRC based on historical laws and official documents are as follows:

South Korea's overseas adoption policy began after the Korean War as a measure to send abroad so-called "mixed-race children," considered inconsistent with the ideal of ethnic homogeneity (Emergency Relief Plan by the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, 1953; Cabinet resolution, 1956; Orphan Act, 1957).

Since the 1950s, the South Korean government actively promoted overseas adoption as a cost-effective child welfare policy, entrusting the entire adoption process to private adoption agencies. These agencies were granted unchecked authority, such as guardianship and consent rights, without proper state oversight. As a result, large numbers of children in need of protection were sent abroad (Special Adoption Act for Orphans, 1961; Special Adoption Act, 1977).

Decisions regarding adoption quotas, suspensions, and resumptions were often driven by non-child welfare considerations—such as concerns about North Korean propaganda, demands from receiving countries, and intense competition among agencies to secure adoptable children (as shown in Ministry of Health and Social Affairs records from the 1970s–1980s).

In this process, children's original identities and family information were lost, distorted, or falsified, and after being sent abroad, proper protective measures were not taken. This resulted in violations of numerous rights, including human dignity, the right to pursue happiness, the right to one’s best interests, the right to know and be raised by one’s parents, the right to a name, and the right to immediate birth registration.

Second, the TRC decision is significant in that it officially acknowledged the widespread and multifaceted nature of human rights violations throughout the illegal overseas adoption process.

It is noteworthy that these findings were made in only 56 out of 367 cases submitted to the TRC, based solely on documentation—without the power of compulsory investigation. Therefore, what was confirmed in this decision is likely only the tip of the iceberg.

Before adoption procedures began, large sums of money and negotiations occurred between agencies to match children with adoptive parents. Agencies ran ads promoting lower fees to attract clients.

In the early stages of adoption procedures, there were record falsifications and procedural misconduct—children of unmarried mothers were treated as orphans without proper consent; lost children were recorded as abandoned; abandoned children were misclassified.

For adoptive parents, qualifications were not rigorously examined; they often received false or incomplete information and were required to make additional donations beyond the basic fees.

In the final stages—after the child left Korea and settled abroad—identity swapping occurred upon death for administrative convenience, and guardianship was arbitrarily transferred to institutions in receiving countries, without checking whether the child had acquired citizenship there.

Third, the TRC decision is meaningful because it approached the issue of human rights violations in illegal overseas adoptions from a human rights-based perspective and issued comprehensive recommendations to the state.

The TRC recommended that the government formally acknowledge and apologize for its wrongdoing. It urged the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to establish an independent body to assess the scope of victims—especially those who did not acquire citizenship in receiving countries—and to devise support measures.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare was advised to actively collect and preserve records held by adoption agencies and related institutions and to make these accessible.

The government was also advised to establish an organization to provide practical support such as DNA testing, family reunions, and communication between adoptees and birth families.

Adoption agencies were urged to apologize to victims, cooperate in restoring their rights, and ensure all records are transferred without omission.

Problems and Limitations of the TRC Decision

Despite these important contributions, the TRC decision also has several problems and limitations.

A majority of the submitted cases were not fully investigated. Some members within the TRC argued that investigations should be closed due to lack of documentation. However, poor record management and oversight are, in themselves, serious violations of the right to truth and identity, and this burden should not be shifted onto the victims.

The decision appears to have been influenced, directly or indirectly, by prejudices about overseas adoption, misunderstandings of social and structural issues, the political sensitivity of the topic, and the influence of adoption agencies.

We must continue asking:

  • Was the investigation and its conclusion sufficient?

  • Why are one-third of the world’s intercountry adoptees from South Korea?

  • Were the institutional connections among adoption agencies, facilities for unwed mothers, hospitals, maternity centers, temporary shelters, child counseling centers, and welfare institutions properly investigated?

  • Was the influence of adoption agencies in policy-making, and the flow of money, properly analyzed?

  • Were the excessive fees charged by agencies properly assessed?

  • Were instances of secondary trauma during family reunification efforts examined?

  • In extreme cases with little physical evidence, were deeper investigations attempted?

  • Given the severity of the human rights violations, why were they not clearly identified as enforced disappearance or child trafficking?

Beyond these substantive issues, there were also institutional and organizational limitations. Overseas adoption was just one of many cases handled by a single division within the TRC. Except for one division focused on victims of military re-education camps, all other mass institutionalization cases (such as at Younghwa School, Jaesaengwon, Brothers Home, Seongam Academy, and adult vagrant facilities) were handled by the same team as the overseas adoption cases.

Language barriers and cultural differences further complicated the process. Overseas adoption cases were unique in involving applicants from a wide range of countries: Denmark, the U.S., Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia, Germany, France, Luxembourg, and Canada.

Additionally, there were other structural limitations:

  • The TRC lacks enforcement power to ensure its recommendations are implemented.

  • Investigations are mostly complaint-based, while self-initiated investigations are the exception under the TRC Act.

Future Tasks: Realizing the Right to Truth and Adequate Redress

The most important task going forward is the full realization of the right to truth for victims of illegal overseas adoptions. According to the UN’s 2006 study on the right to truth, this right includes knowing the reasons, context, and details of the violations, the specifics of the incidents, and who was involved.

This right is closely tied to the rule of law, democratic governance, transparency, accountability, and is also a collective social right.

Considering the scale, duration, language barriers, and cultural differences involved in overseas adoption, the revised TRC Act should explicitly include “human rights violations in overseas adoption” as an object of investigation, and ensure such cases can be handled by a dedicated division or subcommittee.

New investigations should be conducted into cases previously suspended or newly submitted, under a revised framework.

Some proposed amendments to the TRC Act already include the term “adoption agencies” as subjects of investigation—this must be preserved in the final version.

Additionally, South Korea should actively pursue joint investigations and verifications with countries that have already investigated (e.g., the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway) and conduct a full evaluation of overseas adoptions to the U.S.

Given the widespread and systematic human rights violations throughout the entire overseas adoption system—arguably the largest in the world—there is a strong case for establishing an independent body to investigate and address these issues beyond the individual cases submitted.

The second major task is to ensure adequate and meaningful redress for victims.

Remedies must go beyond financial compensation to include:

  • Satisfaction, such as public acknowledgment of facts, acceptance of responsibility, official apologies, and commemorative acts;

  • Restitution, such as reversing wrongful adoptions where in the best interest of the child;

  • Compensation for measurable harm;

  • Rehabilitation, including medical, psychological, and social support.
    (These align with the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation.)

Failure to prosecute perpetrators may itself constitute a separate violation of international human rights law, as noted in the 2023 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on truth and justice.

Among the TRC’s recommendations, the state must immediately implement those regarding acknowledgment and apology. The Ministry of Health and Welfare must develop specific and effective plans to preserve adoption records.

Regarding financial compensation, further in-depth discussion is necessary. Notably, some TRC Act amendments include clauses related to compensation, which deserve serious consideration.

Re-establishing identity and family ties for victims of illegal adoption is a complex issue but must be approached from the standpoint of the child’s best interests and active participation of the victim.

Perpetrators and their responsibilities must be identified throughout the investigation process, and criminal prosecution—including recognizing illegal overseas adoption as a crime and waiving statutes of limitations—should also be considered.

Conclusion

There was never an overseas adoption system created for the benefit of children.”