March Newsletter

Message to our readers

Human Rights Beyond Borders has sought to offer information and analysis that not only informs our readers about the right to origins but also serves as a catalyst for those affected by adoption to pursue their own critical analysis. We hope that this newsletter serves to help readers understand the context of the right to origins in Korea and provide them with some direction on demanding better rights for those affected by adoption.

Our Origins, Our Rights

For the past two years, HRBB has worked on a variety of research and consulting activities, including releasing articles in academic publications, book tours, and providing consultation to overseas experts and officials. Some of these activities were discussed in our bi-weekly articles, Dialogues with Adoptees, published in The Korea Times.

Dialogue with Adoptees has served as a platform to promote the diverse voices of intercountry adoptees. This series has also included writing by experts to help readers understand the historical background of intercountry adoption and provide context for the topics adoptees discuss.

If you have not already read the articles in Dialogues with Adoptees, you may visit the series at The Korea Times or visit our dedicated website.

Investigations, Hague Ratification and Reforms

Intercountry adoptees and investigative journalists have revealed evidence of widespread abuses in European receiving countries' intercountry adoption programs. Recently, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Sweden, and Norway launched investigations into their respective programs. Several of these countries discovered patterns of abuse in countries of origin, including Korea. Consequently, this has led these countries to suspend or halt intercountry adoptions.

During a similar period, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Korea, an investigative body that examines rights violations under Korea's past dictatorships, has been granted an extension to continue its investigation into nearly 400 cases of fraudulent overseas adoptions brought by adoptees.

By 2025, Korea's adoption program will undergo major reforms. In preparation for Hague ratification and to address previous adoption abuse scandals, Korea has legislated two major laws, one on intercountry adoption and another on domestic adoption. In light of these changes, foreign governments, overseas experts, and international Korean adoptees will have major concerns and questions, especially in terms of what these changes mean to the right to origins for the latter group.

After over 70 years of exporting over 200,000 children abroad, government investigations have begun to confirm what adoptees have claimed for decades - that Korea built the largest intercountry adoption program in the world by systematically falsifying children's information and engaging in fraud. While Korea has just begun to initiate major reforms, it remains to be seen how well a country that has relied on intercountry adoption as its primary form of child welfare can establish legal and administrative structures to ensure adoption is done in the best interests of the child. In light of these changes, receiving countries and adoptees may ask, "What will these reforms mean for the rights of origins of adoptees?"

Right to Origins, Right to Know

To respond to these concerns, HRBB will dedicate a portion of future monthly newsletters to inform intercountry Korean adoptees, experts, and foreign governments on intercountry adoption legal and policy changes related to the right to origins, specifically focusing on Korea's personal information disclosure legislation. Despite multiple reforms to prepare for Hague Ratification, the Korean government has done little to respect adoptees' right to origins. Therefore, we aim:

• To examine Korea's general disclosure laws and adoption-related disclosure legislation to show how disclosure of adoptees' information is discriminative and diverges from Korea's general disclosure laws.

• To provide a clearer view of Korea's legal disclosure landscape

We hope that by providing such analysis, adoptees may gain some insight that they can use for their future activism and that experts and officials will understand the implications the upcoming legal reforms have on adoptees' right to origins