South Korea is set to end the decades-old practice of outsourcing adoptions to private agencies, after a damaging investigation concluded the country’s government-endorsed foreign adoption programme violated the fundamental human rights of adoptees.
On Saturday, South Korea will introduce a “newly restructured public adoption system, under which the state and local governments take full responsibility for the entire adoption process”, South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare said.
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South Korea sent more than 140,000 children overseas following the devastating 1950-53 Korean War, when intercountry adoption was encouraged as a solution.
A Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigation concluded earlier this year that the international adoption process had been riddled with irregularities, including “fraudulent orphan registrations, identity tampering, and inadequate vetting of adoptive parents”.
The new change is a “significant step towards ensuring the safety and promoting the rights of adopted children”, the Health Ministry added.
Under the new system, key procedures – such as assessing prospective adoptive parents and matching them with children – will be deliberated by a ministry committee, under the principle of the “best interests of the child”.
Previously, this had been done by major adoption agencies with minimal oversight from the state. The commission blamed the government for the issues, particularly a failure to regulate adoption fees, which turned the industry into a profit-driven one.
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“With this restructuring of the public adoption system, the state now takes full responsibility for ensuring the safety and rights of all adopted children,” said Kim Sang-hee, director of population and child policy at the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
International adoption began after the Korean War as a way to remove mixed-race children, born to Korean mothers and American soldier fathers, from a country that emphasised ethnic homogeneity.
It became big business in the 1970s to 1980s, bringing international adoption agencies millions of dollars as the country overcame post-war poverty and faced rapid and aggressive economic development.
Activists say the new measure is only a starting point and warn it is far from sufficient.
“While I think it’s high time that Korea close down all private adoption agencies, I don’t believe … having the state handle new adoptions is enough,” said writer Lisa Wool-Rim Sjoblom, a Korean adoptee who grew up in Sweden.
The government should prioritise implementing the findings of the truth commission, issue an official apology, and work to help the tens of thousands of Koreans who were sent abroad for adoption, Sjoblom told the AFP news agency.
“The government urgently needs to acknowledge all the human rights violations it enabled, encouraged, and systematically participated in, and, as soon as possible, begin reparations.”
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