S. Koreans Adopted Internationally Demand Investigation into Their Adoptions

S. Koreans Adopted Internationally Demand Investigation¹ into Their Adoptions³

For 40 years, Louise Kwang believed her biological parents were dead. She had been adopted from South Korea in 1976 by a couple from Denmark.

Kwang was told she had been found alone on the streets of the South Korean city of Busan as a baby. That is what she had always been told about her early life.

But that understanding of her identity collapsed⁴ in 2016. The South Korean agency that processed her adoption² admitted it had lied about Kwang. It said the story she was told was created to increase her chances of getting adopted.

Kwang received a letter from a social worker at the Korea Social Service (KSS). The social worker provided the true story.

The agency, in fact, knew about Kwang's biological parents. There is no evidence that Kwang was ever in Busan, a city several hours by car from the country's capital, Seoul. That is where her father was living in 1976, the year of Kwang's adoption.

"I was not an orphan⁵. I have never been to Busan nor at the orphanage⁶ in Busan," Kwang said recently at a news conference in Seoul. "This was all a lie. A lie made up for adoption procedure. I have been made non-existent in Korea, to get me out of Korea as fast as possible."

Adoptees suspect documents made up

About 300 South Korean adoptees in Europe and the United States are calling for South Korea's government to investigate their adoption. The adoptees suspect their adoption procedures were based on falsified documents.

Their effort marks a deepening divide between the world's largest population of adoptees and their birth nation. The effort also comes years after the Korean children were carelessly removed from their families, a practice that was at its highest in the 1980s.

The Denmark-based group representing the adoptees presented a letter this week to the office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. In the letter, the group urged him to prevent agencies from destroying records or punishing adoptees seeking information about their past.

Seoul's Truth and Reconciliation⁷ Commission has received 283 applications from adoptees so far. The applications describe numerous complaints about lost or false biological stories.

Some adoptees say they discovered the adoption agencies changed their identities to replace other children who died, were too sick to travel, or were retaken by their Korean family before they could be sent to Western adopters. Adoptees note that such findings deepen their sense of loss.

Peter Møller is a lawyer and co-founder of the Danish Korean Rights Group. He said he also plans to take legal action against two Seoul-based agencies – Holt Children's Services and KSS – over their unwillingness⁸ to fully⁹ open their records to adoptees.

The agencies often note privacy issues related to birth parents to explain the restricted access to records. But Møller accuses them of inventing excuses to avoid questions about their methods.

Last month, his group first filed applications from 51 Danish adoptees calling for the commission to investigate their adoptions.

The move received intense attention from Korean adoptees around the world, leading the group to expand its campaign to adoptees outside of Denmark. The 232 additional applications received so far included 165 cases from Denmark, 36 cases from the United States, and 31 cases combined from Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Germany.

The commission must decide in three or four months whether to open an investigation into the applications filed by adoptees. If it does, that could possibly lead to the most far-reaching investigation into foreign adoptions in the country.

Holt did not immediately answer calls for comment. Choon Hee Kim, an adoption worker who has been with the KSS since the 1970s, said the agency is willing to discuss issues surrounding its adoptions with adoptees individually but not with the media.

Adoption said to be used to deepen ties with West

About 200,000 South Koreans were adopted overseas during in past 60 years, mainly to white parents in the United States and Europe and mostly during the 1970s and 1980s.

South Korea's then-military leaders saw adoptions as a way to reduce the number of people to feed. They also saw adoption as a way to solve the "problem" of unmarried mothers and to deepen ties with the democratic West.

Most of the South Korean adoptees sent overseas were registered by agencies as legal orphans¹⁰ found abandoned on the streets. Many of the adoptees, however, often had family members who could be easily identified or found.

Special laws aimed at promoting foreign adoptions permitted private agencies to avoid usual child relinquishment¹² steps. To relinquish¹¹ means to give possession of something to another person or group. These laws let the agencies more easily export huge numbers of children to the West year after year.

It was not until 2013 that South Korea's government required foreign adoptions to go through family courts. That ended the long-standing policy that permitted adoption agencies to dictate¹³ when children are considered released from their families.

Words in This Story

couple - n. two people who are married or who have a romantic or sexual relationship

process - v. to deal with (something, such as an official document or request) by using a particular method or system

application - n. a formal and usually written request for something (such as a job, admission to a school, a loan, etc.)

orphan - n. a child whose parents are dead

access - n. a way of being able to use, enter, or get near (something)

procedure - n. a series of actions that are done in a certain way or order : an established or accepted way of doing something

1 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

2 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

3 adoptions   

n.采用，收养( adoption的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Adoption agencies are always so open to alternative family adoptions. 领养中介机构永远都对领养家庭敞开。 来自电影对白
• The number of adoptions has grown in the past year. 去年，收养子女的数字增加了。 来自互联网

4 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

5 orphan   

n.孤儿；adj.无父母的

参考例句：

• He brought up the orphan and passed onto him his knowledge of medicine.他把一个孤儿养大，并且把自己的医术传给了他。
• The orphan had been reared in a convent by some good sisters.这个孤儿在一所修道院里被几个好心的修女带大。

6 orphanage   

n.孤儿院

参考例句：

• They dispensed new clothes to the children in the orphanage.他们把新衣服发给孤儿院的小孩们。
• They gave the proceeds of the sale to the orphanage.他们把销售的收入给了这家孤儿院。

7 reconciliation   

n.和解，和谐，一致

参考例句：

• He was taken up with the reconciliation of husband and wife.他忙于做夫妻间的调解工作。
• Their handshake appeared to be a gesture of reconciliation.他们的握手似乎是和解的表示。

8 unwillingness   

n. 不愿意，不情愿

参考例句：

• Her unwillingness to answer questions undermined the strength of her position. 她不愿回答问题，这不利于她所处的形势。
• His apparent unwillingness would disappear if we paid him enough. 如果我们付足了钱，他露出的那副不乐意的神情就会消失。

9 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

10 orphans   

孤儿( orphan的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The poor orphans were kept on short commons. 贫苦的孤儿们吃不饱饭。
• Their uncle was declared guardian to the orphans. 这些孤儿的叔父成为他们的监护人。

11 relinquish   

v.放弃，撤回，让与，放手

参考例句：

• He was forced to relinquish control of the company.他被迫放弃公司的掌控权。
• They will never voluntarily relinquish their independence.他们绝对不会自动放弃独立。

12 relinquishment   

n.放弃；撤回；停止

参考例句：

• One kind of love is called relinquishment. 有一种爱叫做放手。
• Our curriculum trains for the relinquishment of judgment as the necessary condition of salvation. 我们的课程则训练我们把放弃判断作为得救的必需条件。

13 dictate   

v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令

参考例句：

• It took him a long time to dictate this letter.口述这封信花了他很长时间。
• What right have you to dictate to others?你有什么资格向别人发号施令？