Jung Ik-joong Resigns As Head Of The NCRC.
Image credit: Photo by Hankook Ilbo intern reporter Yoon Seo-young.
정익중 아동권리보장원 원장. 윤서영 인턴기자
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Originally published by The Hankook Ilbo / Naver on May 11th, 2026, 4:30 am KST.
English ChatGPT translation posted to Paperslip on May 11th, 2026, 2:00 am PST / 5:00 am EST.
Thank you to a Paperslip Contributor for the link.
BOLDS and blue highlighting ours.
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Paperslip Note:
We wish we could believe that just swapping out NCRC Presidents would mean that reform was around the corner. Experience tells us this will NOT be the case. What is required for NCRC to improve is a wholesale overhaul of NCRC and actual financial support from the Korean Government via the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW). Simple cosmetic changes will never fix NCRC.
Not to mention that if our files are transferred from the NCRC to the Seongam Branch of the National Archives — supposedly sometime in 2026 — responsibility for our adoption records will shift to an entirely different ministry. The NCRC falls under MOHW, whereas the National Archives are overseen by MOIS (Ministry of Interior and Safety).
The Korean Government will actually have to grow the WILL to help Korean Adoptees in a meaningful way. This does not mean flying a few of us to Korea every year for show pony conferences. It means ADEQUATELY FUNDING NCRC! It means FIXING THE ACTUAL KAS WEBSITE after more than a decade of updates to the underlying 2012 platform the KAS site still “runs” on! It means providing MORE STAFF for a highly overextended NCRC birth family search division!
Just swapping out the head of the Agency will mean jack sh*t unless the root of the issue is addressed — the Korean Government having ACTUAL POLITICAL WILL to help Korean Adoptees!
Until major ACTUAL changes occur from the Korean Government level down to the level of the sad public institution that is NCRC, this infuriating monkey circus will just continue under a different leader…
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By Park Kyung-dam
Submitted: May 11, 2026, 4:30 a.m.
Resignation intention conveyed to Ministry of Health and Welfare; dismissal pending review
Data leak and “volume” remark appear to have influenced resignation
“Jung Ik-joong, head of the National Center for the Rights of the Child, which oversees child abuse prevention and adoption services, has announced his intention to resign. The move is widely interpreted as taking responsibility for a series of controversies surrounding the agency, including the leak of adoptees’ personal information.
According to government officials on the 10th, Jung recently informed the Ministry of Health and Welfare of his intention to step down. Jung, who became the organization’s second president in April 2023, completed his three-year term in mid-April, but had continued serving under a bylaw allowing him to remain in office “until a successor is appointed.”
The National Center for the Rights of the Child, established in July 2019, is a public institution under the Ministry of Health and Welfare responsible for child policy development, child abuse prevention, and adoption services.
Achievements during his tenure included support for crisis pregnancies
A passport belonging to an overseas adoptee was leaked on May 2 through a website operated by the National Center for the Rights of the Child, a public institution under the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The passport was exposed while prospective adoptive parents were checking the progress of their adoption application. (Photo provided by a reader)
A series of incidents related to the agency’s core adoption services appears to have contributed to Jung’s resignation. Last month, it was revealed through this newspaper’s reporting that sensitive personal information of adoptees had been exposed through the online adoption application system launched by the agency on April 30.
When prospective adoptive parents logged into the system to check the status of their applications, they were able to see another person’s private information, including a copy of the U.S. passport of a woman adopted to the United States and a resident registration document containing her address.
The agency also reportedly lost an external hard drive containing approximately 100,000 records of sensitive information, including resident registration numbers of adopted children.
In mid-March, another controversy arose when a senior official at the agency referred to children awaiting adoption as “volume,” as though they were products. At the time, Jung apologized, saying the expression was “completely inconsistent with the institution’s standards and values.”
Jung, who has served as a professor in the Department of Social Welfare at Ewha Womans University since 2008, is regarded as an expert in child and youth welfare, including child poverty and abuse issues.
During his tenure at the agency, he helped establish Korea’s crisis pregnancy and protected childbirth support system, which assists vulnerable pregnant women who are unable to disclose their pregnancies to parents or friends and supports them in raising their children after birth.
Jung’s resignation will become official once he undergoes a review process to determine whether there are any restrictions on dismissal due to investigations or audits, and after approval by Health and Welfare Minister Jung Eun-kyung.
Meanwhile, the agency’s executive recommendation committee, which began recruiting candidates for the third president in late March, is reportedly narrowing down multiple finalists.”