Great report

South Korea: why have so many Korean children been adopted abroad?

Audio 7:30 p.m.

Deoksugung, also known as Deoksu Palace, in Seoul, South Korea.

(Illustrative image) Getty Images - Afton Almaraz

By: Nicolas Rocca Follow

6 mins

Two hundred thousand South Koreans adopted abroad since 1953. An embarrassing world record for a small country of now 52 million inhabitants.

How to explain that, for several decades, the majority of children adopted abroad originated in South Korea?

The world's tenth largest economy is struggling to cope with a painful past.

Investigation.

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From our correspondent in Seoul

Bertha and Harry Holt.

The origin of the adoption in South Korea has an American sound.

In 1955, this couple had a law amended in the United States Congress in order to adopt eight orphans from the Korean War (1950-1953).

While more than 100,000 South Koreans find themselves without parents at the end of the fratricidal conflict which divides the peninsula, the images of these children move homes across the Atlantic.

The Holt was created in 1956 and South Koreans gradually began to be sent abroad

through

this adoption agency.

At that time, the country was destroyed by war, pervasive poverty and the North Korean economy was more flourishing than that of the South.

However, it was 30 years later, in the 1980s, that international adoption in South Korea reached its peak.

One child per hour

During 1986, nearly 9,000 South Korean children were sent abroad, or one every hour.

An impressive figure with various explanations.

At the time, only abandoned or orphaned children were eligible for international adoption.

In a South Korea with a fledgling economy and conservative morals, many children are abandoned.

Due to a lack of means for some and social pressure for others: Amerasian children (born of American soldiers and Korean women) are frowned upon, as are those born out of wedlock, or to a single mother.

A cultural specificity far from explaining on its own the scale of the phenomenon.

I can't believe dozens of children were abandoned by their parents every day in the 1980s

 “says Lee Kyung-eun, researcher in international law and specialist in the subject.

In recent years, many adoptees believe they were adopted against the wishes of their biological parents.

This is the case of Kim Yooree.

This quarantine was adopted in France at the age of eleven, she then found her biological parents.

“ 

In 1994, my father told me he never abandoned me and my mother told me the same thing, but I didn't believe them.

And then this winter, I went to the town hall to consult my father's family booklet.

There I saw that I was still officially his daughter, with a Korean ID number, there was no record of my adoption. 

»

A case unfortunately far from being isolated, according to Han Boonyoung, herself adopted in Denmark and in the process of writing a thesis on the subject at the National University of Seoul.

Not all the adoptees were orphans, the adoption system in South Korea orphaned children so that they could go abroad 

," says Han.

“ 

The central problem is that, until 2011, the entire administrative process of adoption was managed by the agencies. 

Holt East and the other agencies collected the children from orphanages, hospitals or police stations and then took care of the administrative procedures with little or no state control.

In the 1970s and 1980s, South Korea was not yet such a developed country, and the Holt took care of the issues of deprived children in South Korea.

And the South Korean state was satisfied with this deal 

sums up Yves Dénéchère, professor of contemporary history at the University of Angers and specialist in international adoption.

At the time, Chun Doo-hwan ruled South Korea with an iron fist.

Its priority is to clean the streets of poverty as the country prepares to host two major sporting events: the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Olympic Games. And any means is good.

This policy of “social purification” reinforces the use of wellness centers, veritable concentration camps where the marginalized of South Korean society were crammed together.

Children found or too poor are sent abroad.

In 1976, the South Korean government announced a decision to stop international adoption by 1985. But this decision was nullified by the military government's desire to promote adoption from 1981

 ," explains for his part Kim Ji-yeon, director of the division of child welfare within the Ministry of Health.

As for the adoption agencies, we put up with this government strategy.

“ 

At the time, international adoption was seen as a humanitarian action, and the question was: which is more important, respecting the rules or sending the children abroad? 

», Assures an expert who wishes to remain anonymous.

Political will

The Olympic Games are also the beginning of the end, explains Yves Dénèchere.

“ 

At that time, there was a realization that it was not normal for a country that was achieving development to entrust the adoption of its children to an international organization and send so many children abroad. . 

Faced with the media coverage of the foreign press, which is very critical of this system of "exporting children", the Land of the Morning Calm is undergoing a partial transformation.

The number of adoptions fell considerably, but it was not until 2011 that the procedures were really strengthened.

However, despite the requests of some adoptees, no investigation is planned by the South Korean authorities.

Asked about the subject, the Ministry of Health believes “ 

want to apologize through his clear actions and that an insufficient or clumsy apology would not help solve this file, but could even hurt the adoptees or the persons concerned. 

»

Adam Crapser filed a complaint against Holt and the South Korean state.

Adopted in the United States, he was denied American citizenship at age 41, as the courts did not recognize his adoption process.

Forced to return to a country he knew nothing about, he believes he has been the victim of a system and its irregularities.

A historic trial whose outcome could relieve adoptees in search of truth.

Editor's note: Holt refused to answer RFI's questions.

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  • South Korea

  • Children's rights

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