The Hankook Ilbo: “Why did the police say there was no matching DNA?” — (Korean Adoptee) Park Areum meets her mother after 37 years.
Paperslip Note:
Please note that this Adoptee’s Korean Adoption Agency was KWS (Korea Welfare Society) and not KSS (Korea Social Service).
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The Hankook Ilbo: “Why did the police say there was no matching DNA?” — (Korean Adoptee) Park Areum meets her mother after 37 years.
Original Korean article published on September 25th, 2026.
ChatGPT English translation posted to Paperslip on September 25th, 2026.
Please see original Korean article for photos.
“Why did the police say there was no matching DNA?” — Park Areum meets her mother after 37 years
Won Dara, Reporter
Published: September 25, 2026, 6:30 p.m.
Updated: September 25, 2026, 9:48 p.m.
Lost as a child, sent to an orphanage, and adopted to the United States
Requested a DNA test two years ago to find her family
Police did not tell her that a possible biological relationship had been identified
After hiring a private investigative firm, she found her mother in six weeks
“Finding your family should not depend on financial means or luck.”
“A photograph of Park Areum that remained at the orphanage where she stayed before being adopted. Park disappeared in Incheon in 1988 and was adopted to the United States the following year. Photo provided by Park.
A woman who was separated from her family after becoming lost as a young child, stayed at an orphanage, and was adopted to the United States in 1989 spent this Chuseok holiday with her biological mother after being reunited with her 37 years later.
Park Areum, 41, had to hire a private investigator to find her mother because of what she says was incorrect information from the police. She appealed, saying, “Finding your family should not be determined by an individual’s financial means or luck instead of by the government.”
According to documents obtained on September 25 by National Assembly member Kim Ye-ji of the People Power Party from the National Police Agency and other government agencies, Park applied in 2024 through the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Boston to find her biological family and submitted a DNA sample.
The family-search process is conducted by the National Center for the Rights of the Child, which sends the sample to the National Forensic Service to compare it against the DNA database of missing children and their guardians.
In April last year, the National Forensic Service notified the National Center for the Rights of the Child that “a guardian whose parent-child relationship with Park could not be ruled out was found in the DNA test.” The National Center then asked the Incheon Michuhol Police Station to conduct additional testing on that person.
However, the National Police Agency gave Park the opposite information, telling her that “there was no person whose DNA matched.”
After repeatedly hearing from other overseas adoptees that it was difficult to find one's family by simply waiting for Korea's official procedures, Park eventually hired a private investigative firm in December of last year to locate her biological parents.
Just six weeks after transferring 7 million won (approximately US $5,000), Park received the news that her mother had been found.
A copy of an email Park Areum received from the National Police Agency on April 6, 2025, regarding her request to find her biological family. The red box contains the statement that there was no DNA indicating a possible family relationship. Photo provided by Park.
Park came to Korea this month and celebrated Chuseok with her mother for the first time.
Her mother hugged Park tightly and cried, saying, “Thank you for finding me.” She prepared a table full of food for her daughter. After Park finished showering, her mother even gently dried her daughter's hair.
“I cried when I thought about how many of these precious, ordinary moments I had missed in my life,” Park said.
She also learned only much later why she had become separated from her parents.
In 1988, Park had gone out with her father when she became lost and was sent to an orphanage. At the time, ahead of the Seoul Olympics, the government was cracking down on what it called “vagrants,” and many children found on the streets were taken to protective facilities.
The following year, Park was adopted to the United States. Her mother had registered her DNA in the missing-children database in 2010 and had been waiting for her daughter.
“I feel like I am a completely different person before and after learning that my family had been looking for me,” Park said gratefully.
On September 24, Park Areum's husband (left) prepares jeon at her family's home, which she returned to after 37 years. Her children, wearing traditional Korean hanbok, are pictured on the right at their maternal grandmother's home. Photo provided by Park.
On September 25, Chuseok Day, Park Areum, who was reunited with her biological mother after 37 years, looks outside while wearing the hanbok her mother bought for her. Photo provided by Park.
Park says that she could have found her mother two years ago, but lost a crucial opportunity because of the police's error.
Regarding why she was told that there was no person with matching DNA, the police responded:
“The officer in charge at the time was not proficient in English and may have used a translation program. Since that person has already left the agency and there are no records remaining, we cannot determine the specific reason.”
This means that the possibility that there may be other people in situations similar to Park's cannot be ruled out.
More than 2,000 overseas adoptees each year approach the National Center for the Rights of the Child in an effort to find their roots, as Park did.
According to the National Center, in 2024 there were 3,374 requests by overseas adoptees to access adoption information, but only about 7.7%—259 cases—resulted in a reunion with family, relative to the number of requests.
In this situation, a significant number of overseas adoptees turn to private investigative firms, desperately hoping that they can help.
An official from an adoptee-support organization said:
“There are many cases in which adoptees suffer financial and emotional harm after hiring private investigators to find their families.”
Because the period when international adoptions increased dramatically was primarily during the 1960s through the 1980s, most of the adoptees' biological parents are now elderly.
“There isn't much time left for adoptees to meet their biological parents,” Park said, calling for the government to take more active measures.
Assembly member Kim said:
“It is a serious problem that the national system failed to function properly, ultimately forcing people to seek private assistance. The relevant agencies—including the police, the National Center for the Rights of the Child, and the National Forensic Service—must responsibly coordinate with one another and make the public system function properly so that overseas adoptees' efforts to find their families do not depend on their individual financial means.”’
Won Dara, Reporter
dara@hankookilbo.com