In a devastating and painful process, Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has finally named the Korean government’s responsibility in the abusive abduction and adoption machine in the many decades after the Korean War.
200,000 children were taken and kidnapped, with parents forced to surrender, illegally, or under false pretenses, through corruption and capitalism, to the United States.
Hundreds of Korean adoptees from around the world submitted their cases to the TRC for review.
Though the TRC’s names the Korean government’s complicity in the harms by the Korean adoption industry for the first time, it certainly does not go far enough in holding it accountable.
I often speak of the horrors of the Korean adoption industry. It is haunting and gut-wrenching to hear of the lifelong impacts of the industry, from adoptees and abductees.
This image of taken babies and kids strapped into airplane seats heading to Denmark, that was included in an adoption center’s 1984 annual report as if it was an accomplishment, says so much:
And this image of Kim Yoo Ree, an adoptee living in France kneeling in grief because the report does not demand enough justice, speaks profoundly. She is looking at the TRC Chair Park Sun Young.
It was only as recently as 2023 that South Korea government has tried to move away from profiteering private adoption/abduction agencies.
To have been able to even reach these milestones is because of the endless work of Korean adoptees and abductees from all over the world.
There are many calls to end the Korean international adoption system altogether.
May each baby and child that grew up through this wretched and traumatic industry find deep deep justice.
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