SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s government says it plans to end its dwindling foreign adoptions of Korean children, while U.N. investigators expressed “grave concern” over what it described as Seoul’s failure to find the truth and ensure reparations for widespread human rights abuses.
The announcement came hours after the UN human rights office issued South Korea’s response on Friday, urging Seoul to put in place concrete plans to address complaints of adopted children sent abroad with false records or abused by foreign parents.
While the issue was rarely discussed at the UN level, South Korea faced increasing pressure to address the widespread fraud and abuse that plagued its adoption program, especially during the boom in the 1970s and 1980s when it sent thousands of children to the West annually.
Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Li Seuran said in a briefing that the country will aim to reduce foreign adoptions to zero by 2029 over a five-year period.
South Korea plans to accept 24 children for foreign adoptions in 2025, up from about 2,000 in 2005 and an annual average of more than 6,000 in the 1980s.
In the briefing of the Ministry of Health and the response to the United Nations, the officials focused on future improvements rather than past problems.
“While adoptions were primarily handled by private adoption agencies, and while they probably put the best interests of the child first, there may be other competing interests,” Lee said.
“Now that the adoption system has been restructured into a public framework and the Ministry of Health and the government have a bigger role in the adoption approval process, we have an opportunity to re-evaluate whether international adoption is really a necessary option,” she added, citing efforts to promote domestic adoption.
The United Nations urges Seoul to offer a stronger remedy
UN investigators, including special rapporteurs on trafficking, enforced or involuntary disappearances and child abuse, raised the adoption issue with Seoul after months of talks with Yuri Kim. The 52-year-old was sent to a French family in 1984 without the consent of her biological parents, with documents falsely describing her as an abandoned orphan.
Kim said she suffered severe physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her adoptive sons and filed the petition at the United Nations as part of a broader effort to seek accountability from the governments and adoption agencies of South Korea and France.
Citing broader systemic issues and Kim’s case, UN investigators criticized South Korea for failing to provide effective access to treatment for serious abuses and for “potential denial of the right to truth, reparation, and memorialization.”
They also expressed concern over the suspension of government fact-finding investigations into past adoption abuses and fraud, despite reports of serious violations, including cases of enforced disappearances.
In its response, South Korea highlighted past reforms focused on preventing abuse, including a 2011 law that restored judicial oversight of foreign adoptions, ended decades of control by private agencies and marked a decline in international placements.
South Korea also cited recent steps to centralize adoption rights.
However, the government said more confidential investigations and stronger compensation for victims depended on future legislation. It proposed no new measures to address the huge backlog of inaccurate or false records that have prevented many adoptees from reconnecting with birth families or learning the truth about their origins.
Choi Jung-kyu, a human rights lawyer representing Kim, called South Korea’s response “abhorrent.” His draft bill, which proposes relaunching the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate past human rights abuses, does not explicitly mention promises of tough reparations needed to prosecute victims.
The government also vetoed a bill in April that would have lifted the statute of limitations for state-related human rights violations, although that was before President Lee Jae-myung took office in June. Lee apologized in October for past eclipse issues, as recommended by the Truth Commission.
Choi, who has represented many plaintiffs suing the government over human rights abuses under past dictators, said officials often face lengthy legal battles when they dismiss truth commission findings as inconclusive or cite expired statutes of limitations.
Pressure increases to address adoption issues
Kim, who could not immediately be reached for comment, filed a rare petition for compensation against the South Korean government in August, noting that at the time of his adoption authorities falsely documented him as an orphan despite having family.
After a nearly three-year investigation into complaints from 367 adoptees in Europe, the US and Australia, the Truth Commission in March recognized Kim and 55 other adoptees as victims of human rights violations, including false child origins, missing records and child protection failures.
It was weeks before the commission halted its adoption investigation following an internal dispute between the commissions over which the cases were recognized as problematic. The fate of the remaining 311 cases, either deferred or incompletely reviewed, depends on whether lawmakers establish a new truth commission through legislation.
The Commission’s findings acknowledged state responsibility for facilitating foreign adoption programs riddled with fraud and abuse. The program was driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs and was enabled by private agencies that often manipulated children’s backgrounds and origins. The findings largely align with previous reporting by the Associated Press.
An AP investigation in collaboration with Frontline (PBS) detailed how the South Korean government, Western countries and adoption agencies colluded to send nearly 200,000 Korean children abroad despite evidence that many were procured through questionable or dishonest means.
Seoul’s previous military governments passed special laws promoting foreign adoptions, removing judicial oversight and giving vast powers to private agencies, which bypassed proper child relinquishment procedures while sending thousands of children abroad each year.
Western nations largely ignored the abuses and sometimes pressured South Korea to maintain supplies to meet high demand for children.
