Naver Article:
(Non-KSS) Korean Adoptee Interviews By French Speaking Korean Activist
Posted to Paperslip on May 24th, 2025.
Translation via ChatGPT.
Please see original article for photos.
Some BOLDS ours.
*KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptees please note - KSS did NOT adopt to Belgium or France. KSS ONLY adopted to the US, Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland between 1964-2012.
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“Naver Article: Korean Adoptee Interviews By French Speaking Korean Activist
"So they sold me overseas and built those tall buildings, huh..."
Overseas adoptees in tears in Korea...
Interview with three people including Bae Jin-si, representative of Montagne Adoption Solidarity
Editor's Note:
This is the fourth in a five-part interview series featuring Bae Jin-shi, director of the Montagne Overseas Adoptee Alliance (MOAA), Lee Seung-hoon, secretary-general of the same organization, and Kwon Hee-jung, head of the Research Center for Single Mothers’ Archiving and Advocacy. This installment mainly covers the stories of overseas adoptees searching for their birth parents in Korea. Summaries of the previous three articles are included at the end of this piece.
Photo: A classroom photo of adoptee Lee Eun-joo during her early elementary school years in France. [Provided by subject]
Seoul = Yonhap News) Senior Reporter Yoon Geun-young –
I was living in or near Gwangju with my uncle and others. Then in December 1974, when I was six, I went to visit my grandmother in Seoul for a few days. One day, my uncle (identity unclear) came and took me out for a meal, then brought me to a movie theater in Jongno. He even bought me candy at the theater shop. He told me to wait while he went to the restroom—but he never came back.
I opened every restroom door looking for him, but he was gone.
From there, I ended up in a police station, a children's shelter, and eventually an adoption agency. I was adopted to France. Everything about my new world—appearance, language, even smells—was suddenly different, but I had no choice but to accept it all. I felt I had to be good, or I might be abandoned again. I learned French in just six months.
As an adult, I visited Korea and looked into various records. I discovered that my original name wasn’t Kim Eun-joo but Lee Eun-joo. My name had been changed during the adoption process. Korea changed my name and nationality without ever asking me. Back then, I could have told them where I lived, my family’s names—but none of that was recorded.
This is the testimony of Lee Eun-joo, a French adoptee, shared via the YouTube channel Mongsaem Bookshop (run by Bae Jin-shi), which features accounts from overseas adoptees.
Bae Jin-shi (MOAA director), Lee Seung-hoon (secretary-general of MOAA), and Kwon Hee-jung (head of the Research Center for Single Mothers’ Archiving and Advocacy) gave a five-part joint interview to Yonhap News beginning March 12.
They stated, “Illegal acts by adoption agencies and orphanages must be investigated,” and “there should be support systems to help adoptees find their birth parents.”
They also added, “Overseas adoptees grew up facing discrimination and hardship abroad, and when they return to Korea as adults, they are baffled to see how well the country is doing—wondering why a nation so prosperous had to send them away.”
“Investigate Human Rights Violations in Overseas Adoptions”
Overseas adoptees and representatives of domestic and international organizations hold a press conference on April 10, 2025, after submitting a petition for truth investigation to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
[Photo by Hwang Gwang-mo]
Below is the Q&A from the 4th joint interview:
Interviewees: Bae Jin-shi (MOAA Director), Lee Seung-hoon (MOAA Secretary-General), Kwon Hee-jung (Head of the Research Center for Single Mothers’ Archiving and Advocacy)
Q: What do you think about the claim that international adoption is better than children growing up in domestic orphanages?
▲ (Kwon) Korea tends to view adoption as child welfare. But if you consider the perspective of the birth families and the children who are separated, this belief is misguided. True child rights mean supporting birth families so they can raise their children well. If we send babies for adoption without helping vulnerable mothers, it just perpetuates a welfare system centered on adoption and institutions. That system allows adoption agencies to profit while the Ministry of Health and Welfare neglects the original families.
Q: Some claim that in the 1980s or earlier, children in Korean orphanages faced sexual abuse, beatings, and no chance of attending college—so international adoption was a better option.
▲ (Kwon) That argument usually comes from adoptees who had successful lives abroad. But the problems in orphanages don’t cancel out the problems in adoption—they’re separate issues that each require attention and reform. After 1970, most adoptees were infants, but before that, many were 4, 5, or 6 years old. Children that age can usually say their parents' names, describe their neighborhood, or even give their address. Yet many were sent for adoption without any effort to reunite them with family. Just because some adoptees succeeded doesn’t justify these unethical and illegal practices. And successful adoptees are only a small portion—at least 20,000 Korean adoptees in the U.S. are undocumented and have no citizenship.
▲ (Lee) It's difficult to say whether international adoption or domestic institutional care is “better.” But what we are saying is that the international adoption system itself needs to be reformed. And if overseas adoption is supposedly so beneficial, then why don’t more countries actively send their children abroad?
“The government must not only apologize but also request an investigation into illegal acts”
Lee Seung-hoon (left), Secretary-General of MOAA; Bae Jin-shi, Director; and Kwon Hee-jung, Director of the Center for Single Mothers’ Archiving and Advocacy, during an interview with Yonhap News.
[Photo by reporter Jin Sung-chul]
Q: Adoptees sometimes say things like “I miss my parents so much it drives me crazy.” Why is the longing to find their birth parents so intense?
▲ (Kwon) Not knowing your parents or birth information means not knowing where you came from. It's like a piece of your life history has been cut off and erased by someone else. The frustration and despair that come from that are overwhelming.
▲ (Lee) Many adoptees I’ve met believe there must have been a valid reason why their parents gave them up, and they want to find out what that reason was.
Q: It’s said that some adoptees cry when they see the buildings of adoption agencies in Korea. Why is that?
▲ (Kwon) When adoptees visit Korea, they’re shocked. They can't understand why a country that now seems so wealthy had to sell its children abroad. When they see the tall buildings of the adoption agencies, they’re struck again. Some say, “So this is the building they built by selling me,” and they cry.
Police Report on French Adoptee Lee Eun-joo
On December 2, 1974, the Jongno 3-ga police station received a child carrying a bundle of clothes. The child was recorded under the name Lee Eun-joo. [Provided by subject]
Q: Are there cases where adoption records were falsified?
▲ (Lee) Yes—French adoptee Lee Eun-joo is one such case. She has been coming to Korea for many years to look for her parents. When she inquired at Holt Children’s Services, they had a record of her. But it listed her as Kim Eun-joo, born in 1967. However, records from the police station and the Red Cross center list her name as Lee Eun-joo. Her real name was Lee Eun-joo, but somewhere along the line—through the Seoul Shelter for Lost Children, the Underwood Girls’ Home, and Holt—her name was changed to Kim Eun-joo.
Q: Why was her last name changed?
▲ (Lee) We asked Holt about it, but they said they didn’t know. I don’t believe it was a simple mistake, especially since only the surname was changed. It seems more like a case of document tampering. When names are changed like this, it becomes much harder for adoptees to find their birth parents.
Adoption Record from Holt Children’s Services
Lee Eun-joo’s name was changed to Kim Eun-joo.
[Provided by Montagne Overseas Adoptee Alliance]
Q: Where is Lee Eun-joo originally from?
▲ (Lee) According to her testimony on the YouTube channel Mongsaem Bookshop, she lived with her uncle in or near Gwangju and was visiting her grandmother’s home in Seoul. That’s when she was abandoned at a movie theater in Seoul. She was later taken to the Jongno 3-ga police station, then to a shelter, and eventually adopted to France.
Q: What’s the story behind being abandoned at the movie theater?
▲ (Bae) She said she went to a restaurant with a man she believed to be her uncle, and then to a movie theater in Jongno 3-ga. He even bought her candy at the concession stand. Then he told her to wait while he went to the restroom—but he never came back. She asked the shop owner who sold her the candy if he had seen her uncle. The shop owner called the police. Lee Eun-joo believes her uncle deliberately abandoned her.
Lee Eun-joo in her early 20s
Provided by the subject]
Q: What does she say about her biological parents?
▲ (Lee) She believes her mother either passed away or her parents divorced. She assumes her father left her in the care of her uncle and others to start a new life. She recalled that her father used to visit her with another woman.
Q: What was her life like in France?
▲ (Lee) In her testimony, she said she was suddenly thrust into a place where everything—appearance, language, food, even smells—was completely different. To avoid being abandoned again, she accepted everything. She learned French in just six months, which she said was a matter of survival. She described erasing a child’s past so suddenly as a form of violence.
Photo of Koo Sang-pil at the time of his adoption to Belgium
[Provided by Montagne Overseas Adoptee Alliance]
Q: Are there other adoptees who desperately search for their parents?
▲ (Bae) Yes, Koo Sang-pil from Belgium is one of them. Born in 1967, he was adopted at age five. He still remembers being on the airplane. He says there were about four other children with him and baskets below them where babies lay crying.
Q: What was his life like in Belgium?
▲ (Bae) He was adopted into a wealthy family and said his adoptive parents loved him. He later worked as a supermarket manager until he developed arthritis in his legs and had to take a break. He often got into fights at school. When other kids teased him with the slur "Chintok" (a derogatory term for Chinese), he would respond with his fists instead of backing down.
Q: What efforts has he made to find his Korean parents?
▲ (Bae) He visited the NCRC (National Center for the Rights of the Child) and asked where he was born. They told him Busan’s Geumjeong-gu district. But when he requested to see the documents, there was no mention of Busan. He asked them not to hide any records and to show everything, but they replied that records could only be accessed once per year.
Q: What does “once per year” mean?
▲ (Lee) It appears to be an internal policy at the NCRC. With so many adoptees coming to search and not enough staff to assist, they seem to have created that rule.
Photo of Koo Sang-pil today
[Provided by Montagne Overseas Adoptee Alliance]
Q: Did his search for his parents end there?
▲ (Bae) No. Since he was told Geumjeong-gu, he went there and inquired about villages where people with the surname Koo lived. He posted missing person notices on bulletin boards at local community centers, churches, and Catholic parishes. He handed out small flyers, the size of A4 paper, to passersby on the street. Each time, he explained his story in French—because he didn’t speak Korean or English. I translated for him. Telling the same painful story over 100 times is exhausting.
Q: Distributing flyers to find one’s parents must be incredibly difficult.
▲ (Bae) It is. But it seemed to be healing for Mr. Koo. It was like a cathartic process—his own way of finding closure. He said that if he didn’t do this, he would have to rely on antidepressants.
Q: If the police really tried, couldn’t they just look this up in a database?
▲ (Lee) That’s why we once visited a police station. But they simply told us they couldn’t help someone without known family ties.
Q: What exactly is a “no-known-relative” adoptee?
▲ (Lee) It refers to someone adopted without any confirmed biological family—no parents or relatives on record. About 70% of overseas adoptees fall into this category. For them, verifying family connections is still extremely difficult.
“I’m searching for the parents who might still be looking for me.”
[Photo provided by Bae Jin-shi, Director of Montagne Overseas Adoptee Alliance]
Q: Belgian adoptee Lee Sang-jin is also searching desperately for his parents. Who is he?
▲ (Bae) He was adopted to Belgium in 1974 through Korea Welfare Society (KWS / SWS) agency. He was born on June 1, 1971, making him three years old at the time. His adoptive parents divorced, and he had a difficult childhood.
Q: How does he know he was born on June 1, 1971?
▲ (Bae) It’s written in his adoption records. Most adoptive parents don’t give their children access to those, but his did. They believed children had the right to know about their past. He described them as generous people.
Q: He’s said to be highly educated—what’s his background?
▲ (Bae) He graduated from a prestigious Belgian university equivalent to KAIST (Korea’s top science and tech school). He worked in IT and made a decent living. Although his adoption was a sad experience, he lived with determination, not wanting it to define him or be the cause of his misfortune.
Young photo of Belgian adoptee Lee Sang-jin
[Provided by Montagne Overseas Adoptee Alliance]
Q: What efforts has Lee Sang-jin made to find his parents?
▲ (Bae) According to records, he was found in front of Yongseong Elementary School in Namwon. So, he went to Namwon and asked around. He heard that his mother might have been a singer.
Q: What are his thoughts on adoption?
▲ (Bae) He said he was not happy during his childhood. However, he emphasized that not all adoptees have the same life, so he doesn’t want to blame all his hardships on adoption. Still, he believes domestic adoption is preferable to international adoption, as international adoptees suffer from racial discrimination. He said even as adults, they face discrimination when looking for jobs and housing. Before K-pop became well-known, it was even difficult for him to have a girlfriend.
Q: What does he mean by discrimination in employment and housing?
▲ (Bae) He recounted that a landlord once refused to rent to him. But under the same conditions, the landlord accepted a white person’s rental request. He said that in Belgium, when hiring people, if everything else is equal, white candidates are preferred.
Q: He also referred to international adoption as “child trafficking”—why?
▲ (Bae) He used that term to express multiple issues: children being kidnapped for money, racial discrimination upon arrival in Europe, many children experiencing abuse and neglect, a high number of adoptee suicides, adoptees living with deep emotional wounds, and the fact that many children were not happy. His use of “child trafficking” was meant to summarize all of this.
Molly Holt in August 2008
Molly Holt, chairperson of Holt Children’s Services, stated on August 8, 2008, in response to calls for halting international adoptions, that such a move was “premature” considering that many newborns were still being abandoned and raised in orphanages.
[Photo: Yonhap News]
Q: It’s said that many children who were lost (missing children) were adopted overseas in the past.
▲ (Kwon, Director) Each adoptee case is different. When a child was found lost, they were sent to the police, temporary shelters, or orphanages—some eventually ended up adopted overseas through agencies. Legally, there was supposed to be a public notice period to help find the parents before adoption, but that process was often neglected. In 1982, the Seoul Municipal Child Guidance Center established a central lost-child report center, meant to compare the daily lists of missing children with new reports. But in reality, that function failed and was virtually non-existent. In the process of going through various institutions, records were sometimes falsified.
Q: What do you mean when you say adoption agencies were essentially running businesses to acquire children?
▲ (Kwon) In the past, the four major international adoption agencies reportedly earned 3 to 6 billion KRW (approx. 3 to 6 million USD) annually. These agencies even marketed their services by visiting hospitals and maternity clinics. They reportedly paid hospitals 70,000 to 90,000 KRW per newborn.
Q: Where is this information from?
▲ (Kwon) In 1988, ahead of the Seoul Olympics, foreign media criticized Korea for “selling babies abroad.” In response, the Korean government launched an audit. These findings come from that audit. It was reported that adoption agencies paid social welfare institutions, including orphanages, 100 to 200 million KRW per year to facilitate international adoptions.
Q: What should be done about these past adoption issues?
▲ (Kwon) As I’ve said before, a formal government apology is necessary. Investigations into illegal activities must be carried out. And comprehensive support measures need to be put in place for the victims.
(End of Part 4 of the Interview Series)
Jang Sung-tan and his wife Lorian Simon in good health
[Provided by wife]
<Summary of Interview Part 1>
[Life] “The state sent an adoptee to die… Can the state just stand by and do nothing?” (Sent March 17, 2025)
Matthieu Sung-tan Poucot (38, Korean name Jang Sung-tan) was born in December 1986 in Iksan City, South Korea (then called Iri City). At four months old, he was adopted to France through Holt Children’s Services. Jang suffers from an illness that causes insomnia.
His wife, Lorian Simon, insists that an accurate diagnosis and effective treatment require genetic testing results from her husband’s biological parents. However, the Korean Child Rights Protection Agency said they cannot provide personal information without the biological parents’ consent under the Adoption Special Act. Personal information includes phone numbers, addresses, etc.
The state sent the child for adoption, yet that child is now dying as an adult. It makes no sense for the state to neglect this. The law should be interpreted more actively from the adoptee’s perspective.
In the West, laws have been changing to prioritize adoptees’ human rights over protecting parental secrets. For example, in 1975, the UK amended child law so adoptees can access their birth information once they turn 18.
In the US and Canada, laws vary by state/province, but many allow adoptees to access biological parent information if they want. The UN has declared that a child’s right to know is more important than protecting biological parents’ lives. Korea needs to improve its Adoption Special Act and related systems as well.
<Summary of Interview Part 2>
[Life] “Western adoptive father sexually abused three Korean sisters for six years… A girl purposely gained weight” (Sent March 31, 2025)
Some children adopted abroad suffer emotional and physical abuse, including sexual abuse by adoptive parents.
There were three Korean sisters adopted by a middle-class European family. When the eldest turned 13, the adoptive father began sexually abusing her. When the second daughter grew up to that age, he abused her too. The second daughter said, “If I get ugly, Dad will bother me less,” and she ate one to two tubs of chocolate cream daily.
The adoptive father was a respected professional in the community, known for adopting and raising poor Asian children well. He proudly told many people at family gatherings how much he loved his daughters.
One child, upon arrival in the US, wet herself due to difficulty adjusting. The adoptive father, a pastor, said this was due to lack of discipline and beat her severely with a stick.
<Summary of Interview Part 3>
[Life] “My birth mother wants to stand on opposite sides of the main road and just see my face”… Adoptee’s tears (Sent May 12, 2025)
A woman adopted to France and raised there wanted to see her birth mother. Through the adoption agency, she barely found her mother. In 2005, she met her birth mother for about 15 minutes at the agency’s office. It was so bittersweet that she wanted to meet again and contacted her mother in 2010.
But her birth mother refused direct meetings or conversations. Instead, she said if her daughter stood on one side of a major street in Seoul’s Dongdaemun area, she would stand on the opposite side to look at her face and then leave.
The government holds great responsibility for adoptees’ tragedies, as it authorized the adoption agencies. While responsible for overseeing and supervising adoption agencies, it failed to properly do so. Moreover, it permitted sending Korean babies and children overseas.
The independent investigation committee ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Past Affairs,’ chaired by a minister-level official, recently stated the government must apologize for overseas adoptions. That is not enough. If there are illegal acts by the four major adoption agencies, including Holt Children’s Services, investigations must be conducted. Compensation for overseas adoptee victims and support in finding parents are also urgently needed.
<Interviewee Introductions>
Bae Jin-si, director of Montagne Overseas Adoptee Alliance (MOAA), studied philosophy in university. In 2005, she went to France to pursue a PhD in philosophy and taught Korean at universities there, meeting many Korean adoptees. After returning to Korea, she began helping adoptees earnestly from 2009. She travels around the provinces to interpret for adoptees searching for their parents. (Paperslip Note: Jinsi Bae speaks French and Korean, not English). In January last year, she founded MOAA to expand support for adoptees. She also runs the Montagne Institute of Humanities and does writing and lectures.
Lee Seung-hoon, MOAA secretary general, is a pharmacist who runs an herbal medicine pharmacy. When adoptees come to Korea, he drives them in a van, assists visits to specific regions, and helps with administrative paperwork.
Kwon Hee-jung, director of the Single Mothers Archiving and Advocacy Research Institute, was the founding secretary general of the Korean Single Mothers Support Network for five years starting in 2008. She founded the current institute last year to raise more awareness about single mother issues. After 18 years of research and writing on single mothers, she also became interested in adoption issues. She holds a PhD in anthropology from the Academy of Korean Studies.”