A South Korean woman adopted to France in 1984 without her parents' consent is seeks compensation from South Korea's government.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A 52-year-old woman who was adopted to a French family in 1984 without her biological parents’ consent has filed for compensation from South Korea’s government, citing how authorities at the time fraudulently documented her as an orphan although she had a family.

The rare petition filed by Yooree Kim came months after South Korea’s truth commission recognized her and 55 other adoptees as victims of human rights violations, including falsified child origins, lost records and child protection failures.

Her case was highlighted last year in an Associated Press investigation in collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS). The investigation found that South Korea’s government, Western countries and adoption agencies worked in tandem for decades to supply some 200,000 Korean children to parents overseas through questionable or downright unscrupulous means.

Their stories have triggered a reckoning that has shaken the international adoption industry, which took root in South Korea before spreading worldwide. Under pressure from adoptees, the Seoul government launched a fact-finding investigation, and hundreds submitted their cases for review.

  • Frog@lemmy.caEnglish
    9·
    12 days ago

    After a nearly three-year investigation, the commission concluded in March that the state bears responsibility for facilitating an adoption program rife with fraud and abuse, driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs. It urged the government to issue an apology and develop plans to address adoptees’ grievances.

    These acts, including convincing pregnant teenagers to give up their baby, wasn’t just to reduce welfare, they were very profitable. Adoption fees were pretty high.

    There were clear limitations to the commission’s report, which didn’t thoroughly examine the profit structures of adoption agencies, their links to child sources like hospitals, or receiving countries’ practices.

    The money is where the investigation should have started.

    Peter Moller, who was adopted from South Korea to Denmark before the enactment of such a law in 1974, claims that his parents had spent a total of 15-thousand dollars in adoption fees.

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