World’s Largest ‘Baby Exporter’ Admits to Adoption Fraud
A South Korean truth commission called for the country to apologize to those who were sent abroad “like luggage” so that adoption agencies could profit.
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Sun-young Park, the chairwoman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, comforts an adoptee, Yooree Kim, on Wednesday after delivering the findings of the agency’s investigation into South Korea’s decades of adoption malpractices.
Credit...Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press
By Choe Sang-Hun
Reporting from Seoul
March 26, 2025
Leer en español
South Korea on Wednesday admitted for the first time that in its rush to send children to American and European homes decades ago, its adoption agencies committed widespread malpractices, including falsifying documents, to make them more adoptable.
The findings by South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a government agency, which said children were sent away “like luggage” for profit decades ago, were a hard-won victory for South Korean adoptees abroad. Many adoptees have returned to their birth country in recent years, campaigning tirelessly for South Korea to come to terms with one of the most shameful legacies of its modern history.
Adoption agencies falsified documents to present babies as orphans when they had known parents, the commission acknowledged. When some babies died before they were flown overseas, other babies were sent in their names. The heads of four private adoption agencies were given the power to become legal guardians for the children, signing them away for overseas adoption.
The commission’s report was the government’s first official admission of problems with the country’s adoption practices, including the lack of oversight, even though such malpractice had been exposed in the past. The agency recommended that the state apologize for violating the rights of South Korean adoptees.
South Korea is the source of the world’s largest diaspora of intercountry adoptees, with around 200,000 South Korean children sent abroad since the end of the Korean War in 1953, mostly to the United States and Europe.
In its destitute postwar decades, South Korea promoted overseas adoptions to find homes for orphaned, abandoned or disabled children abroad rather than build a welfare system for them at home. The government left it to the adoption agencies to find and ship children abroad for fees from adoptive families.
“Numerous legal and policy shortcomings emerged,” said Sun-young Park, the chairwoman of the commission. “These violations should never have occurred.”
The findings carry repercussions beyond South Korea, as several receiving countries — including Norway and Denmark — have opened investigations into their international adoptions. The United States, which has received more children from South Korea than any other country, has not done so.
“This is a moment we have fought to achieve: the commission’s decision acknowledges what we adoptees have known for so long — that the deceit, fraud, and issues within the Korean adoption process cannot remain hidden,” said Peter Moller, a South Korean adoptee from Denmark who led an international campaign for the commission to launch an investigation.
Image
Peter Moller, left, with other co-founders of a Danish group that fought for an investigation into South Korea’s adoption practices.Credit...Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press
The commission identified many cases where the identities and family information of children were “lost, falsified or fabricated” and where children were sent abroad without legal consent.
It cited the case of a baby girl it identified only by her last name, Chang, who was born in Seoul in 1974. Her adoption agency in Seoul knew her mother’s identity. But in the documents it sent to her adoptive family in Denmark, the agency said the girl came from an orphanage.
That agency, Korea Social Service, charged a $1,500 adoption fee, as well as a $400 donation, per child from adoptive families in 1988, the commission said. (South Korea’s per-capita national income that year was $4,571.) Some of these funds were in turn used to secure more children, turning intercountry adoptions into “a profit-driven industry,” the commission said.
South Korea’s export of babies peaked in the 1980s, with as many as 8,837 children shipped abroad in 1985. Children were “sent abroad like luggage,” the commission said, presenting a photo that showed rows of infants and young children strapped to airplane seats.
“While this is not news to us adoptees, it is a significant victory in the sense that we are finally receiving acknowledgment of what has happened to us over the years,” said Anja Pedersen, who was sent to Denmark in 1976 under the name of another girl, who had died while waiting for adoption.
The truth commission does not have the power to prosecute any of the adoption agencies, but the government is required by law to follow its recommendations.
The adoption agencies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Since the commission launched its investigation in late 2022, some 367 overseas adoptees have asked it to investigate their cases, a majority of them from Denmark. On Wednesday, the commission recognized 56 of them as victims of human rights violations. It was still investigating the other cases.
Mia Lee Sorensen, a South Korean adoptee who was sent to Denmark in 1987, said the commission’s findings provided the “validation” that she had been seeking. When she found her birth parents in South Korea in 2022, they couldn’t believe she was alive. They told her that her mother had passed out during labor and that when she woke up, the clinic told her that the baby had died.
Those whose cases weren’t recognized among the victims on Wednesday expressed hope that the commission would be extended to carry out more investigations.
Mary Bowers, who was adopted by a family in Colorado in 1982, was still waiting for answers to many inconsistencies in her adoption papers.
“This is only the beginning,” Ms. Bowers said.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea. More about Choe Sang-Hun
A version of this article appears in print on March 27, 2025, Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: South Korea Acknowledges Its Decades of Adoption Fraud. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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By Choe Sang-Hun
Reporting from Seoul
March 26, 2025
Leer en español
South Korea on Wednesday admitted for the first time that in its rush to send children to American and European homes decades ago, its adoption agencies committed widespread malpractices, including falsifying documents, to make them more adoptable.
The findings by South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a government agency, which said children were sent away “like luggage” for profit decades ago, were a hard-won victory for South Korean adoptees abroad. Many adoptees have returned to their birth country in recent years, campaigning tirelessly for South Korea to come to terms with one of the most shameful legacies of its modern history.
Adoption agencies falsified documents to present babies as orphans when they had known parents, the commission acknowledged. When some babies died before they were flown overseas, other babies were sent in their names. The heads of four private adoption agencies were given the power to become legal guardians for the children, signing them away for overseas adoption.
The commission’s report was the government’s first official admission of problems with the country’s adoption practices, including the lack of oversight, even though such malpractice had been exposed in the past. The agency recommended that the state apologize for violating the rights of South Korean adoptees.
South Korea is the source of the world’s largest diaspora of intercountry adoptees, with around 200,000 South Korean children sent abroad since the end of the Korean War in 1953, mostly to the United States and Europe.
In its destitute postwar decades, South Korea promoted overseas adoptions to find homes for orphaned, abandoned or disabled children abroad rather than build a welfare system for them at home. The government left it to the adoption agencies to find and ship children abroad for fees from adoptive families.
“Numerous legal and policy shortcomings emerged,” said Sun-young Park, the chairwoman of the commission. “These violations should never have occurred.”
The findings carry repercussions beyond South Korea, as several receiving countries — including Norway and Denmark — have opened investigations into their international adoptions. The United States, which has received more children from South Korea than any other country, has not done so.
“This is a moment we have fought to achieve: the commission’s decision acknowledges what we adoptees have known for so long — that the deceit, fraud, and issues within the Korean adoption process cannot remain hidden,” said Peter Moller, a South Korean adoptee from Denmark who led an international campaign for the commission to launch an investigation.
Image
Peter Moller, left, with other co-founders of a Danish group that fought for an investigation into South Korea’s adoption practices.Credit...Ahn Young-Joon/Associated PressThe commission identified many cases where the identities and family information of children were “lost, falsified or fabricated” and where children were sent abroad without legal consent.
It cited the case of a baby girl it identified only by her last name, Chang, who was born in Seoul in 1974. Her adoption agency in Seoul knew her mother’s identity. But in the documents it sent to her adoptive family in Denmark, the agency said the girl came from an orphanage.
That agency, Korea Social Service, charged a $1,500 adoption fee, as well as a $400 donation, per child from adoptive families in 1988, the commission said. (South Korea’s per-capita national income that year was $4,571.) Some of these funds were in turn used to secure more children, turning intercountry adoptions into “a profit-driven industry,” the commission said.
South Korea’s export of babies peaked in the 1980s, with as many as 8,837 children shipped abroad in 1985. Children were “sent abroad like luggage,” the commission said, presenting a photo that showed rows of infants and young children strapped to airplane seats.
“While this is not news to us adoptees, it is a significant victory in the sense that we are finally receiving acknowledgment of what has happened to us over the years,” said Anja Pedersen, who was sent to Denmark in 1976 under the name of another girl, who had died while waiting for adoption.
The truth commission does not have the power to prosecute any of the adoption agencies, but the government is required by law to follow its recommendations.
The adoption agencies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Since the commission launched its investigation in late 2022, some 367 overseas adoptees have asked it to investigate their cases, a majority of them from Denmark. On Wednesday, the commission recognized 56 of them as victims of human rights violations. It was still investigating the other cases.
Mia Lee Sorensen, a South Korean adoptee who was sent to Denmark in 1987, said the commission’s findings provided the “validation” that she had been seeking. When she found her birth parents in South Korea in 2022, they couldn’t believe she was alive. They told her that her mother had passed out during labor and that when she woke up, the clinic told her that the baby had died.
Those whose cases weren’t recognized among the victims on Wednesday expressed hope that the commission would be extended to carry out more investigations.
Mary Bowers, who was adopted by a family in Colorado in 1982, was still waiting for answers to many inconsistencies in her adoption papers.
“This is only the beginning,” Ms. Bowers said.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea. More about Choe Sang-Hun
A version of this article appears in print on March 27, 2025, Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: South Korea Acknowledges Its Decades of Adoption Fraud. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Read 240 Comments
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240
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Jenny Kerestus
I’m a Korean adoptee and trying to find out about my adoption records, the adoption agencies were charging exorbitant fees for them. I lost my adopted mom at age 9 so it’s like I lost both mothers. I’ve been trying to find about my birth parents but it… See more
13h
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Lauren Daugherty
I cannot imagine what it would be like to pass out during labor and then wake up and be told your baby had died. Only to find out decades later your baby had been “adopted” by a family in another country. That is reprehensible.
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Sophia Li
These acts involved serious human rights violations, including identity tampering and inadequate vetting of adoptive parents.The Committee recommended that the Government formally apologize and take remedial measures, such as ratification of the Hague … See more
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SoYoung Park
It’s devastating. No apology will bring back time lost, bring back my mother’s embrace or breath as I never met her again, heal the broken heart of my brother who wasn’t adopted, take the guilt away from family who couldn’t find us before they exported… See more
6h
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Kendra Northam
Lots of tough and conflicting feelings about all this 💔😓❤️🩹 So much trauma we have been forced to carry our whole lives as korean adoptees.
8h
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Suzanne Yoon
I was one of those kids! They falsified my name and birth date!
11h
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Christine Dzialo
In 1997- 1998 a woman at Ithaca College - Tami or Tammy ( I was a few years younger) made her senior film on this experience she had of being adopted and her and her sister going to meet her birth parents in Korea. It was an excellent film and helped m… See more
2h
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Lynne Schatz
How terrible for the children who were adopted into loving families and for the adoptive parents who wanted children but would never knowingly have taken a child from a loving parent. It was not in their hands, and one hopes that the best intentions an… See more
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Olivia ON
For the record I believe that my birth mother did consent to my adoption but I have also seen some inconsistencies on the paper work that my parents were given. The name that I was given was Eun-Ha and my parents were told it meant lotus blossom. That … See more
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Izzy Haskell
Adoption in USA has a lot of dark pieces and more and more is coming to light. 💡 hopefully just means future things are fixed up better for everyone involved.
1d
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Yon-Sook Kim
It so sad, this could have happened to me. Perhaps my mother thinks I died at three months old but I am still a live. It’s so unbelievable that I don’t know who is my mother and were I was born and when. I just know I was three months old when somebody… See more
10h
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Lisa Vance
As an adoptive mom (child was not from Korea) this simply breaks my heart. At the time we thought we were doing the right thing.
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Jonathan Ihm
I'm going through an identity crisis- am I an orphan or am I not? 🥸
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Aleksander Myrvold
Make their fully military dna register available for adoptees matching!
7h
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Jennifer Linder Ersing
This is one of the reasons many countries have changed laws that that international adoptions are only for children ages 3-5+ vs infants
1d
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Kathy Egan
This is so disturbing, how painful for the adoptees and the parents that were deceived. It’s good that the truth is coming out. There is a whole lot of unnecessary trauma to be worked through.
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Gosia Sandecka
it's true. I know a person adopted in such a way, without any knowledge even about his real age... the kids were assigned the same "date of birth" - on a day the plane landed in the Netherlands and had no idea about their true identity, family, age, re… See more
22h
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Elizabeth Lloyd
The movie Blue Bayou with Alicia Vikander depicts this. Absolutely heartbreaking.
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Ayxan Mamedoff
What wouldn’t people do for money…?
2h
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Tanveer Ahmad Ch
Then these children raised without any love & human affection. Then, they recruited in war missions.
Watch a movie “Soldier” which highlight this issue.
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Danielle Greene
Tanveer Ahmad Ch Absolutely. The cycle of neglect and militarization is heartbreaking. 'Soldier' does a great job of illustrating how a lack of love and humanity can shape a person into nothing more than a tool for war.
1d
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Anna E Greenley
Tanveer Ahmad Ch Thanks for the recommendation. I will if I can.
1d
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Jennifer J Gipson
Tanveer Ahmad Ch Hello how are you doing
19h
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Oana Cretu
Tanveer Ahmad Ch🙁
1d
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Dipika Islam
Tanveer Ahmad Ch https://yapabbreviate.com/tprjqhbe...
1d
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Scott Munoz
Tanveer Ahmad Ch https://hatsmindsinfatuated.com/qmdvc5vjd...
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M Rahad
Tanveer Ahmad Ch https://knotbachelor.com/q96vs7dke...
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Oana Cretu
What I've learned last time about South Korea makes me don't wish to go there
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Hyejin Jang
Finally... . Even there were orphans made by kidnapping. The police and the agencies are all involved as heard. It is all about money. Just for money, they broke a whole family.
20h
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Joon Oh
아~ 부끄럽습니다.
1d
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Jay MinHoo Kim
언론이 이런데 관심을 가져야지 국내언론은 죄다 이재명이니 윤석열이니;; 휴..
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Ajmal Syed
Plz any one guide me .how babies are exported. For what reason parents give them to others
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Mary Norton Anderson
How do Harry Holt and Holt International fit into this?
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Kristiana de Leon
The adoption industry writ large is highly unethical, and Korea's is just an especially heinous case.
The American adoption industry is 1000% complicit, to be clear. Adoptions should be safe, legal, and rare … See more
5h
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Annita Pring
Not just South Korea. Australia has been accepting children through intercountry adoption from Thailand as recently as 2023. Even while international borders closed during Covid, Australian couples were travelling to collect children taken for this mar… See more
1h
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Eunice Barbara C. Novio
There was a huge adoption house there in the 2000s called Eastern Homes. I met the founder. There were dozens babies being taken care of and were up for adoption. The person in charge There said that most babies were abandoned by their parents who were… See more
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Moses Farrow
I was taken from South Korea in 1980 by Mia Farrow. In 1998, former President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea held a very public event with 29 Korean adults who had also been sent to 8 other countries, and APOLOGIZED on behalf of the country for sending away the 150,000 Koreans at that time. He was also responsible for passing a DUAL CITIZENSHIP law in 1999 which they were included in.
This investigation has not revealed anything new in a country that has already admitted to and apologized almost 20 years ago. In the meantime, we are aware of countless deaths from suicide and murder in this child supply market, namely 16 month old Jung In who was found abused to death in 2021.
I am not celebrating, but remain deeply saddened and concerned for the lack attention to such profound loss of children's lives while the focus remains on issues of "fraud." There needs to be an inquiry into the murders and suicides of the victims in this child supply market and a demand for justice, redress, and restoration of the surviving victims of this industry.
6h
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Topalovic Jovana
During the war in Yugoslavia, many children " disappeared" in this way. Many mothers were told their kids died , suddenly decades after, many cases showed the kids were sold to the West. It happens in many countries. The black market of selling organs,… See more
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손소연
And now, I hope for the sake of us, we all band together to sue Korea in a class action lawsuit.
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Anna E Greenley
You have to commend the country for their honesty. Seriously. Admitting to such horrific crimes against humanity isn't something easy to do.
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Andre Albano
Well, I always thought the other one was the bad Korea.
21h
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Stephen Jones
United States perfected it
4h
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Mia Danielle
This is what happens when you exchange money for children. Adoption is sugar coated baby buying..
1d
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Shirley de Galo
Fraud? No surprise there. When I did adoption work as a volunteer years ago, families sometimes did not even receive the child they thought they had adopted. One family was given a school-type picture of a headshot of a beautiful little girl; the chil… See more
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Jimmy Pal
Angelina Jolie gonna be pissed.
19h
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Regina Alexandra
This is horrifying
1d
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Karthyk Rajan
Sure New York Post.
America is angel.
23h
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Suzanne Lee
The revelation highlights the need for systemic reform and transparency in global adoption processes to ensure ethical practices going forward.
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Dennis Borg
That's no secret, we all knew that, the corruption continues.
1d
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Mingling Chen
Can I contact Elon Musk, I come from Taiwan, I need his help
21h
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Kim Finnegan
Those babies were stolen? Shocker.🙄
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Brian Gierl
"More adoptable?"
1d
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Ulrich Blasberg
Miserable crooked persons.
1d
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Craig Courtney
Which Korea did this?
15h
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James Cleary
Literally just listened to a Red Thread episode about this. Wild
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Sanna van Beijma
Rebecca Kimmel
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Sophie Lee
Human trafficking. As someone recovering from birth as of yesterday in Korea, the thought is harrowing...
3h
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Zeeshan Meer Khan Khel
Cute innocent kids 🥺
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Gunter Koo
Do not take this as a win! We didn't win much of anything. It is just a forced acknowledgment.
There were plenty of missteps. The overwhelming majority of the over quarter million of us Korean Adoptees are American. Sold to white people in the 80's… See more
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C.C. Molly
There’s enough children in America to adopt. Why go elsewhere ?
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Abi L-Deng
It was also a social Darwinist plot to save money by reducing the amount of children in poverty and improve social statistics in a rush to achieve “developed” status.
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Axel Reid
and here’s another reason the US of A needs president trump. prediction: the next EO president trump will be signing is to deport adopted Korean babies. so much winning from this administration, it can’t be stopped. 🔥
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Zeeshan Meer Khan Khel
What can you expect from naughty America?
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Shanna Marie
The US did this too right? Via the Catholic Church. Have they admitted it yet?
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Nicole Simon
Which means they're here illegally. With forged papers. ICE is going to rip their lives apart. . . . .
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Jen Eisert
Literally trafficked babies to the highest bidder? Dispicable
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Andrea Robinson
Wait until you hear about the US adoption fraud 🚼
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Ludwig Lewis
all about the money - the US taught Korea the ugly side of capitalism and profit making at all costs
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Ken White
Im gob smacked. And I thought Asians didn’t tell lies. Well you never !
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Alexander
Now they export boys made up like girls and hollow pop culture. Jow times have changed
22h
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Evelyn R. Morris
Then these children raised without any love & human affection. Then, they recruited in war missions.
1d
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Mike Law
The Democratic Party's favorable ratings are falling to new lows, according to two new national polls.7
Just 29% of those questioned in a CNN poll released on Sunday say they have a favorable view of the party, with 54% holding an unfavorable view.… See more
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Sofia Tinsley
What I've learned last time about South Korea makes me don't wish to go there
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Naomi Wilson
literally trafficked babies to the highest bidder? despicable
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Sarah Frette
Holly Frette Jolene Frette
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Amy Devera Galluzzo
Andrea Reddic
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Angie Stewart Black
Bonnie Crossan Davison Travis Calvin Stewart
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Olivia Gadegaard
Silja
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Jennifer Byrd
Nancy Smith
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Tara Cavalli
Theresa Gutierrez
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Dorothea Bailey
Wow
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Lucy Gardam
Amy KG
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Angel Emperio
Ardin Cychosz
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Christine Faude Klag
Jenna Antoniewicz Mayor Jenna Antoniewicz ❤
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Yeeleng Moua
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