» South Korea govt responsible for international adoption fraud: inquiry

In a landmark announcement, the country’s truth commission concluded after a two-year and seven-month investigation that human rights violations occurred in international adoptions of South Korean children, including “fraudulent orphan registrations, identity tampering, and inadequate vetting of adoptive parents”.

It also said “numerous cases were identified where proper legal consent procedures” for South Korean birth parents were “not followed”.

The commission also said the South Korean government failed to regulate adoption fees, allowing agencies to set them through “internal agreements”, effectively turning it into a profit-driven industry.

And despite regulations requiring verification of adoptive parents’ eligibility, an overwhelming majority – 99 per cent – of intercountry adoption approvals in 1984 alone were granted on the same day or the following day, the commission said, citing its investigation.

“These violations should never have occurred,” the commission’s chairperson, Park Sun-young, told reporters.

“This is a shameful part of our history,” she added.