(26 Mar 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Seoul, South Korea – 26 March 2025
1. Various of Park Sun Young, Chairperson of Truth and Reconciliation Commission shaking hands with adoptees
2. Wide of Park Sun Young at lectern
3. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Park Sun Young, chairperson of Truth and Reconciliation Commission:
"South Korea had become the world’s poorest country after the Korean War and actively promoted international adoption from an economic perspective. The word ‘active,’ coupled with ‘hurry-hurry culture,’ led to inadequate legislation and a hasty administrative process. International adoption continued into the 90s and the children who were adopted bore the full brunt of the damage."
4. Mid of journalists
5. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Park Sun Young, chairperson of Truth and Reconciliation Commission:
"Among 140,000 adoptees, 367 of them from 11 countries — the U.S, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Australia, Canada, Luxembourg — requested for an investigation into the truth. Due to the vastness of the case, please understand that we are announcing the results for only 56 cases."
6. Close of journalists
7. Wide of Sang Hoon Lee, a standing commissioner and investigator
8. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Sang Hoon Lee, a standing commissioner and investigator:
"98 adoptees had submitted requests and only 56 of them were recognized as victims. Regrettably, the results for the other 40 were deferred. Personally, I find yesterday’s decision very regrettable and consider it a half-baked decision. I personally disagree with the decision."
9. Wide of Lee
10. SOUNDBITE (Korean) Sang Hoon Lee, a standing commissioner and investigator:
"We are an organization that investigates violence (by and under past administrations), not adoption problems. We need to consider the issues of international adoption agencies or adoption placement agencies comprehensively in order to reach a conclusion. We are an organization that looks into state-sponsored violence. Therefore we were limited in getting more information on adoptees and their relations to biological parents in the process of international adoption."
11. Mid of journalists
12. Wide of Sang Hoon Lee
STORYLINE:
South Korea’s truth commission on Wednesday concluded that the government bears responsibility for facilitating a foreign adoption program rife with fraud and abuse.
It found that it was driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs and was enabled by private agencies that often manipulated children’s backgrounds and origins.
The landmark report released on Wednesday followed a nearly three-year investigation into complaints from 367 adoptees in Europe, the United States, and Australia.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a government-appointed fact-finding panel, said it confirmed human rights violations in 56 of the complaints and aims to review the remaining cases before its mandate expires in late May.
However, some adoptees and even a senior investigator on the commission criticized the cautiously written report, acknowledging that investigative limitations prevented the commission from more strongly establishing the government’s complicity.
That investigator, Sang Hoon Lee, also lamented the panel’s decision-making committee’s 5-4 vote on Tuesday to defer assessments of 42 other adoptees’ cases, citing a lack of documentation to sufficiently prove their adoptions were problematic.
He said the commission’s stance reflects a lack of understanding of the systemic problems in adoptions and risks excluding many remaining cases.
AP video by Yong Jun Chang
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