South Korea facilitated illegal overseas adoptions of 200,000 children between the 1950s and 1980s by mislabeling them as orphans, enabling widespread adoption fraud.

An Associated Press investigation reveals that South Korea's government, in collaboration with Western countries and adoption agencies, facilitated the overseas adoption of around 200,000 children from the 1950s to the 1980s through unethical practices. Many children were falsely labeled as orphans or abandoned. The program, aimed at reducing welfare costs, lacked proper safeguards, leading to widespread adoption fraud that severed ties between many adoptees and their birth families.

September 19, 2024
104 Articles