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Adoptees sent to Europe and the US say they were wrongly removed from their families as government in Seoul actively promoted adoption.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, life in residential facilities for people with disabilities in South Korea has become even more precarious, if not deadly, said Lee Jung-ha, who heads the advocacy group Padosan, in an interview for this article from Hankyoreh. The article describes the conditions of these facilities, noting that "some people with physical and developmental disabilities also spend their entire lives in institutions, researcher Seo Won-sun says, adding that up until a few decades ago, it was not uncommon for parents to 'abandon' their disabled children in large…
"A court in Seoul ruled Friday that a woman adopted by an American couple almost four decades ago must be recognized as a daughter of an 85-year-old South Korean man," says this article from the New York Times. The ruling provides "hope for the thousands of Korean-born adoptees who want to know the identities of their birth parents."
The Associated Press reports that a "notorious South Korean facility that kidnapped, abused and enslaved children and the disabled for a generation was also shipping children overseas for adoption, part of a massive profit-seeking enterprise that thrived by exploiting those trapped within its walls." According to the article, the facility, known as Brothers Home, was "part of an orphanage pipeline feeding the demand of private adoption agencies."
The AP investigation confirmed that at least 19 children were adopted abroad from Brothers Home, and indicates that 51 more such adoptions…
This radio segment from WNYC describes a new audio-visual exhibition in New York City that tells the stories of 100 "former orphan" adoptees born in South Korea who are now adults living all over the world. The installation was created by filmmaker and South Korean adoptee Glenn Morey and his wife Julie Morey. In the segment, Morey shares his views on domestic and inter-country adoption, noting that there is little to no domestic adoption in South Korea and the cultural contributions to that. The project explores identity and culture and the experiences of inter-country adoptees.
The Seoul Central District Court has recently held a hearing in relation to "a landmark lawsuit filed by deported Korean American adoptee Adam Crapser against the Korean government and Holt Children’s Services," according to this article from the Korea Herald. "Crapser, adopted through Holt at age 3, was abused by two sets of adoptive parents, neither of which filed for his United States citizenship," says the article. "Crapser was later imprisoned for burglarizing his adoptive parents’ home to retrieve a Bible and a stuffed toy from his time in Korea. He later faced separate convictions…
Adam Crapser, a man born in South Korea who was brought to the US by an adoptive family when he was three years old, is suing the government of South Korea and a private adoption agency called Holt Children’s Services, "over what Crapser calls gross negligence regarding the way he and thousands of other Korean children were sent to the United States and other Western nations without accounting for their future citizenship," according to this article from the Associated Press. Crasper was abused and abandoned by two different adoptive families and then deported from the US due to an…
Thirty years since the Seoul Olympics, South Korea is still tackling the legacy of overseas adoption
Jessica Walton, a South Korean adoptee and the author of this piece from the Conversation, uses the Winter Olympic games in South Korea as an opportunity to examine social issues in the country, particularly its legacy of intercountry adoption. Walton describes overseas adoption as an "ongoing issue" for South Korea, writing "Efforts to curtail the number of children sent overseas were discussed after South Korea was internationally shamed. But although adoptions dropped to 4,191 in 1989 and 2,962 in 1990, they continued in the thousands well into the early 2000s. South Korean children…
Eighteen Korean-born adult adoptees in the United States plan to travel to South Korea during the Winter Olympics to meet with lawmakers about reforming adoption laws in the country, according to this article from KVAL.com. The delegation of adoptees is particularly concerned with a 2014 change to Korean law that affects both domestic and intercountry adoption, which requires mothers who wish to put up their children for adoption to sign a registry. "Critics contend the registry is pushing unwed mothers who want to avoid the stigma to instead abandon their babies - and abandoned babies can't…
South Korea is considering ratifying the Hague Adoption Convention, according to this article from the Korea Times. The country's Ministry of Health and Welfare submitted a motion for approval of the convention to the National Assembly on October 18 of this year, says the article. "If the National Assembly approves the motion, it is expected to reduce the number of inter-country adoptions and change the practices surrounding the system."