US EditionSouth Korea President Apologizes for Overseas Adoptions Failures
President Lee apologized for abuses and fraud in international adoption programs affecting over 170,000 children since the Korean War, following a three-year investigation and official report.
- South Korea's President Lee Jae Myung apologized on October 2 for state-sanctioned malpractices in overseas adoptions, acknowledging that "unjust human rights violations" were committed during the process.
- An official inquiry discovered fraudulent practices, including falsifying documents and inadequate vetting of adoptive parents, concerning international adoptions of South Korean children.
- Lee stressed the importance of safeguarding adoptees' rights and establishing a human rights-centered adoption system.
- Lee's apology comes 12 years after South Korea signed the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, committing to improve the adoption system.
47 Articles
47 Articles
S. Korean president apologises over foreign adoptions of stolen children
South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung on Thursday offered a “heartfelt apology” for the country’s ill-managed adoption programme of the 1970s and 1980s that led to tens of thousands of children being sent to new homes abroad. An inquiry in March found that many of the children were wrongfully taken, even stolen, from their biological parents.
More than 140,000 children were sent abroad for adoption between 1955 and 1999, according to official data. On Thursday, 2 October, the President of South Korea apologized for these practices.
South Korea recognized for the first time, on Thursday, October 1, its responsibility in tens of thousands of abusive adoptions of South Korean children internationally, a few months after an independent official investigation establishing fraud. I have "a heavy heart to the idea of the pain of victims of illegal adoptions," said South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.
South Korea has for the first time recognized its responsibility for the abuses of tens of thousands of children sent abroad by sometimes fraudulent practices for more than a decade.
More than 140,000 children were sent abroad for adoption between 1955 and 1999 to remove Métis children born to Korean mothers and American soldiers in a country that advocates ethnic homogeneity.
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