challenging the myths at the heart of the global adoption industry
- Written by Samara Kim, PhD Candidate & Researcher, Southern Cross University
Korean adoptees worldwide are grappling with a devastating possibility: they were not truly orphans, but may have been made into orphans.
For decades, adoptees were told they were “abandoned”, “rescued” or “unwanted”. Many were told their Korean families were too “poor” or “incapable” to raise them – and they should only ever feel grateful for being adopted.
But these long-held stories are now under scrutiny.
Our recent research interrogates the narratives that have obscured the darker realities of intercountry adoption. Rather than viewing adoption solely through the lens of “rescue”, our work examines the broader power structures that facilitated the mass migration of Korean children to western countries, including Australia.
South Korea’s reckoning with its adoption history
In March, South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission released its preliminary findings after collecting records and testimony from a coalition of overseas Korean adoptee-led organisations (including the Australia–US Korean Rights Group).
The preliminary report revealed a disturbing pattern of human rights violations in the country’s adoption industry, including:
- forced relinquishments
- falsified records
- babies switched at adoption
- inadequate screening processes, and
- deep-rooted institutional corruption.
The commission’s chair described finding
serious violations of the rights of adoptees, their biological parents – particularly Korean single mothers – and others involved. These violations should never have occurred.
The commission is expected to release its final report soon, but due to the upcoming presidential election and political uncertainty in South Korea, the timeline remains unclear.
Chilling cases
This is not the first time intercountry adoption has made headlines for irregularities, human rights abuses, or illicit and illegal practices.
While Australia was expanding the number of children for intercountry adoption from South Korea in the 1980s, Park In-keun – director of South Korea’s infamous Brothers Home, an illegal detention facility that sent children overseas for adoption – was arrested for embezzlement and illegal confinement.
He was ultimately acquitted of the most serious charges in South Korea before escaping to Australia. He was then charged again in 2014 for embezzlement, including government subsidies and wages of inmates forced into slave labour in South Korea. He died two years later.
Other allegations of human rights violations and abuses came to light around the same time with the arrest of Julie Chu.
She was accused of facilitating a “baby export” syndicate. Children were believed to have been kidnapped from Taiwan to send to Western countries, including Australia, in the 1970s and 80s. She was convicted of forgery, but denied being involved in trafficking.
Since then, other cases have continued to emerge involving countries such as Chile, Sri Lanka, India, Ethiopia and Guatemala.
What is the adoption industrial complex?
Intercountry adoption is not just a social practice. It’s also an economic and political system sometimes known as the transnational adoption industrial complex.
This network of organisations, institutions, government policies and financial systems created a globalised adoption economy worth billions of dollars. According to numerous investigations, Western nations, as “receiving” countries, drove the demand for the continuous sourcing of children.
As Park Geon-Tae, a senior investigator with South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said:
To put it simply, there was supply because there was demand.
Australia received an estimated 3,600 Korean children from the 1970s to the present, as part of more than 10,000 intercountry adoptions.
Prospective parents typically paid between US$4,500 and $5,000 to facilitate acquiring a child in Australia in the 1980s, equivalent to A$21,000 today.
Since colonisation, Australia has had a long and painful history of child removal. From the Stolen Generations involving First Nations children to the forced adoption of children born to unwed mothers, child separation has been deeply embedded in the nation’s social policy.
While national apologies have acknowledged the irreparable harms caused by these policies, the same ideologies and structures were repurposed as the blueprint for intercountry adoption.
In recent years, other western nations, such as Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland, have begun to investigate their own roles in the intercountry adoption industry. These nations have either suspended their adoption programs, issued formal apologies or launched formal investigations.
Thus far, Australia and the United States have not.
Challenging the ‘rescue’ myth
Intercountry adoption has long been framed as a humanitarian act. The central idea was that children needed “rescuing” and any life in a Western country would be “better” than one with their families in their home country.
Many adoptees and their original families were expected to just move on or be grateful for being “saved”.
However, research shows this gratitude narrative disregards the deep trauma caused by forced separation.
Studies have reported that adoptees experience lifelong ruptures due to cultural, familial and ancestral displacement. Forced assimilation makes reconnection with family and culture complex or nearly impossible.
Many intercountry adoptees have also voiced concerns about abuse, violence and mistreatment in adoptive homes.
Questioning the ‘orphan crisis’ myth
The myth of a global orphan crisis has also been a powerful driver of intercountry adoption.
Adoption groups often reference outdated UNICEF estimates that there are 150 million orphans globally. However, this figure obscures the fact most of the children classified as “orphans” are children of single parents, or children currently living in homes with extended family or other caregivers.
This was the case in South Korea. Most children sent for adoption were not true orphans, but children who had at least one parent or extended family they could have stayed with if they were adequately supported.
The belief that millions of children of single parents were “orphans” in need of “rescue” was used to justify calls for faster, less regulated adoptions.
Labelling these children as “orphans” also helped attract millions of dollars in philanthropic donations. However, donors were rarely interested in supporting children to stay with their families and communities in their home countries.
Instead, the focus was often on removing and migrating them for the purpose of intercountry adoption.
The question then emerges: was this about finding families for babies or finding babies for Western families?
Authors: Samara Kim, PhD Candidate & Researcher, Southern Cross University
