The South Korean government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission admitted on Wednesday that the government had violated fundamental human rights in the intercountry adoption process due to a lack of a proper legislative framework, oversight, and adherence to administrative procedures.
The government’s findings are based on an intensive investigation that involved gathering information and conducting interviews with relevant individuals. The gathered information includes a vast amount of data from the archives and adoption records of four major adoption agencies, including petitions filed by 367 adoptees sent overseas between 1964 and 1999.
The government identified major problems in the intercountry adoption process, including the government’s strategy of using intercountry adoption as a cost-effective alternative to domestic child welfare policies. In the 1950s, South Korea was one of the poorest countries, recovering from the devastation of World War II and the Korean War. The government stated that the combination of an economy-driven approach and South Korea’s “hurry hurry” culture led to “poorly developed legal frameworks” and “rushed administrative procedures.” These rushed procedures, focusing on achieving targeted results, resulted in fundamental human rights violations in the process.
Another problem identified was the government’s delegation of full authority over the procedure to private agencies without proper oversight. This led to a failure to fulfil its duty to protect children’s rights and made it more difficult to regulate misconduct by private adoption agencies. Indeed, the mistreatment of children’s information left them without proper legal protection.
The government confirmed eight fundamental human rights violations:
- Lack of proper consent for adoption
- Fabrication of records, including false reports of abandoned children
- Tokenistic public notice for guardians
- Deliberate identity substitution
- Inadequate screening of adoptive parents
- Neglect of guardianship duties
- Mass exportation of children to meet demand
- Forced donations for adoption placement
The government admitted its failure to uphold its responsibility to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens. The commission urged the government to implement the following recommendations: an official government apology, a comprehensive survey of adoptees’ citizenship status and corresponding policy measures, remedies for victims whose identities were falsified, prompt ratification of the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, and a commitment from adoption agencies to restore adoptee rights.
In a press conference, another commission member Lee Sang Hoon commented that the report is insufficient to address the trauma, adding that of 98 adoptees who sued the government, only 56 of them were recognized as victims.
The obligation to remedy illegal intercountry adoption is enshrined in international law. These obligations include the right to the truth, procedures to annul adoptions, right to reparation and truth mechanisms. These rights source from several international conventions including Article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
