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.
57 Articles
57 Articles
Sydney Morning Herald
South Korea’s president has apologised to adoptees. They say his words are not enough
Lee Jae Myung has offered a “heartfelt apology and words of comfort”, but Australian adoptees say it must be matched by action to help families reunite.
South Korea makes Facebook apology for foreign adoption programs
South Korea President Lee Jae Myung apologises for poorly managed foreign adoption programs that were rife with abuses and fraud, months after the country’s truth commission admits state responsibilities for such practices for the first time.
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.
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