South Korea to probe foreign adoption cases

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South Korea to probe foreign adoption cases

South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission will investigate the cases of dozens of South Korean adoptees in Europe and the US who suspect their origins were falsified or obscured during a child-export frenzy in the mid- to late 20th century.

Thursday s decision opens what could be South Korea's most far-reaching inquiry into foreign adoptions, as frustration over broken family connections grows and now grown up children demand government attention.

The adopted South Koreans are believed to be the world's largest diaspora of adoptees. Around 200,000 South Korean girls were adopted overseas in the past six decades. During the 1970s and 80s, most of the children were placed with white parents in the US and Europe.

The commission decided to investigate 34 adoptees who were sent from the 1960s to the early 1990s to Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and the US. The adoptees say they were wrongfully removed from their families through falsified documents and corrupt practices.

They were among 51 adoptees who submitted their applications to the commission in August through the Danish Korean Rights Group, led by adoptee attorney Peter M ller.

Hundreds of adoptees from Sweden and Australia are expected to file applications on Friday, which is the deadline for investigation requests, according to M ller s group.

The investigation will expand over the next few months as the commission reviews whether or not to accept applications submitted after August. Park Young-il said that cases that are seen as similar will probably be fused to speed up the investigations.

There are a wide range of grievances that allege carelessness and a lack of due diligence in the removal of scores of children from their families amid loose government monitoring.

During much of the period in question, the country was ruled by a succession of military leaders who saw adoptions as a way to deepen ties with the democratic west while reducing the number of mouths to feed and removing the socially undesirable, including children of unwed mothers and orphans. South Korea was a rare country that enforced laws aimed at promoting adoptions, which allowed profit-driven agencies to manipulate records and bypass proper child relinquishment.

The adoption process was quicker and easier because of the fact that most of the South Korean adoptees sent abroad were registered by agencies as legal orphans found abandoned on the streets. Many of the so-called orphans had relatives who could be easily identified and found.

Some of the adoptees said they discovered the agencies had switched their identities to replace other children who died or got too sick to travel, which made it hard to trace their roots.

The adoptees called for the commission to investigate agencies for records falsification and manipulation, and for allegedly proceeding with adoptions without the consent of birth parents.

They want the commission to determine whether the government was responsible for the corrupt practices and whether adoptions were fuelled by more large payments and donations from adoptive parents, which has apparently motivated agencies to create their own supply.