In 1984, at the age of 11, Yooree Kim was sent, along with her younger brother, from South Korea to France through an international adoption program.
Kim’s impoverished mother had sent her children in an orphanage so they could eat, something that was commonplace among poor families. However, after returning to the centre, she found that her children had been sent away, as they had unknowingly been put up for adoption.
In 2022, Kim — who resented her parents for years before figuring out the truth — discovered that her name remained legally registered under her father, indicating that no formal relinquishment had occurred and that false paperwork claiming they were roaming the streets was used as evidence to send them away. This revelation prompted her to seek justice and accountability from the South Korean government.
Kim’s case is part of a broader pattern of systemic issues within South Korea’s adoption practices. A 2023 report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that the government’s lack of oversight enabled a shocking foreign adoption program rife with fraud and abuse. The report said that give there was no government regulation on fees, agencies charged large amounts which turned adoptions into “a profit-driven industry”.
It highlighted that adoption agencies often manipulated children’s backgrounds, falsely documenting them as orphans —as happened in Kim’s case — while bypassing proper consent from biological parents, and switching children’s identities altogether.
The shocking findings add that South Korean officials saw foreign adoptions as a cheaper alternative to building a social welfare system for needy children.
Transnational /Transcultural Adoption Project 