South Korea confronts its dark past as the West's 'baby exporter'

The adoption and its absolute relation to the identity of an individual is not just the theme of hit Korean film 'Return to Seoul'.South Korea stands as the world's leading source of intercountry adoptees, surpassing all nations in foreign adoptions.

In response to widespread allegations of corruption and misconduct, South Korea initiated its first official government investigation into its adoption industry last year. Following the launch of this investigation, while its results are yet to be out, a number of adoptees have opened up about the struggles to configure their own identities.

Since the conclusion of the Korean War in 1953, approximately 200,000 children have been sent abroad, mainly to the United States and Europe.

Despite government efforts to promote domestic adoptions, South Korean families have traditionally been hesitant to adopt. In the post-Korean War decades, when the country faced poverty, limited medical services, and meagre welfare budgets, the imperative was to find overseas adoptive homes for orphaned, abandoned, or disabled children.

Problems with South Korea's adoption industry

While many children reportedlyfound caring homes abroad, South Korea's rapid promotion of overseas adoptions inadvertently led to deep-rooted industry issues, including profit-driven adoption firms falsifying or concealing documents to increase the pool of adoptable children.

Unwed mothers often felt coerced into abandoning their infants, sometimes before birth, with limited follow-up on children's well-being in their new homes, reports in the New York Times and NPR point out.

The roots of South Korea's "baby export" business lie in xenophobia and prejudice, with biracial children born to American soldiers and Korean women facing a grim choice: overseas adoption or life in poverty and shame.

Hasn't there been a call for reforms?

Yes, reforms have occurred in South Korea to prevent malpractices in its adoption industry.

In recent decades, South Korea has taken steps to reform adoption practices, offering more support to single mothers and requiring court approval for overseas adoptions. Nonetheless, numerous accusations from earlier years remained uninvestigated.

The push for accountability has been led by returning adoptees partnering with a new generation of advocates and politicians willing to confront this once-taboo legacy.

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A number of adoptee initiatives and guest houses have sprung up in Seoul that support the Korean children adopted abroad and the ones who visit the country of their origin.

Despite economic improvements, South Korea continued to promote adoption, culminating in liberalised intercountry adoptions in the 1980s, ostensibly for "emigration and private diplomacy."

In 1985, 8,837 South Korean children were sent abroad for adoption, 6,021 of them to the United States, according to the New York Times.

For each baby, adoption agencies collected a $3,000 to $4,000 “facilitating fee” from the adoptive family, as well as airfare and a separate $1,450 adoption fee, according to internal government documents from the national archives, cited by the New York Times.

This led to the international labels of "baby exporter" and "mail-order babies" that persist today.

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