Structural Violence, Social Death, and International Adoption: Part 3 of 4

Why International Adoption From Korea Doesn’t Make Sense (and Why Korea Does It Anyway)

Let us ignore for a minute that no international convention states that poverty is in and of itself is a good reason to separate children from their parents, communities, or countries. Let us play along for a minute with the rather simplistic and reductive argument that international adoption is a good way for children from poor countries to start new lives in rich countries. In those terms, its easy to see with a few facts that international adoption from Korea to the U.S. no longer makes sense.

1. The global trend in international adoption has been going down over the past five years as the U.S., the world’s top adopter, is forced to lower consumption amid widely reported abuses and sending countries putting tighter regulations on their adoption programs. In fiscal year 2009, the number of adoptions fell to 12,753 – a decrease of over 80% from the peak of 22,990 in 2004.

2. Of the top sending countries (China, Russia, Guatemala, South Korea, Ethiopia), only Ethiopia and South Korea have increased their adoptions to the U.S. over the past three years. In the case of South Korea, it sent 938, 1,065, and 1,080 to the U.S. in 2007, 2008, and 2009, respectively.

3. Countries with a similar GDP per capita to South Korea, around $27,000, are Slovenia, Israel, and New Zealand. Of those countries, only South Korea has an international adoption program.

4. While certain countries are sources of mail-order brides for Korean men and cheap manual labor for Korean industries, Korea sends more children for adoption to the U.S. than any of those countries. According to the U.S. State Department, in U.S. fiscal year 2008, South Korea sent 1065 to the U.S., more than Myanmar (0), Camobdia (0), Pakistan (59), the Phillipines (292), India (308) or Vietnam (748).

5. Child poverty is higher in the U.S. than in Korea (20.6% vs. 10.7%) and the overall poverty rate is also higher (17.1% vs. 14.6%), according to OECD statistics in the mid 2000s.

6. Hunger also exists in America. During the recession of 2008, 1 in 5 households with children experienced “food insecurity,” according to the  USDA Economic Research Service using Current Population Survey Food Security Supplement data, via the online magazine Amber Waves.

7. American children are four times more likely to end up outside family care than Korean children. According to the CIA World Factbook in July 2009, the U.S. had a population of 307,212,123, and of those, the population of children aged 0-14 years was 61,944,831. According to the Child Welfare League of America in 2006, there were 518,174 children living in foster care and facilities under the age of 16. That means about 0.85% of American children live in care. Meanwhile, the total population of South Korea was 48,508,972 and of those, the population of children aged 0-14 years was 8,166,097. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2007, there were 18,426 children under the age of 18 years living in facilities, or 0.22% of the children’s population.

In a call-in program of Wisconsin Public Radio in a broadcast on March 9, 2010, in which the international adoption of foreign children to the U.S. was discussed in light of Korea, Guatemala, and Haiti, American Lisa Marie Rollins wrote via Facebook:

As one who has been involved with child protective services in the US, I am saddened that children in our country don’t seem to be afforded the same level of concern as children overseas. Not that children from any given geographic location are more or less valuable, more or less important, more or less deserving of care, than any others, but some children living in the US – HERE, OUR COUNTRY – are subject to “third-world conditions,” too. What about them? Why aren’t the “Brangelinas” of the US stepping forward to foster/adopt them?

On the same program, Karen Dubinsky, Professor of Global Development Studies and History at Queen’s University in Kingston (Ontario, Canada) and the adoptive mother of a child from Guatemala discussed the corrupting force of money in adoption, adding, “At a certain point, adoption was the fourth-largest earner of foreign currency in Guatemala, just after coffee and foreign remittances.” She went on to say, “That’s why it took adoption reform advocates years…to try to push against the entrenched interests in the government in Guatemala and you know, this is a story that gets repeated in other places as well. Absolutely.”

No one seems to know how much money the South Korean government has made from the adoptions of its children, though it is worthy to note that while Guatemala sent nearly 33,000 children out of the country from the 10-year time span of 1999-2009, South Korea has sent at least five times more children over a time span almost six times longer. How significant the income from “adoption fees” and “donations” has been for South Korea, particularly during the period of its industrialization, is something that deserves full investigation. The total amount of money that the adoption industry has brought into the economy, however, would have to also include the white envelopes, fees for adoptee tourism such as the “Motherland tours,” adoption agency “guesthouses” that cater to returning adoptees, revenue earned from adoptees who are for searching for birthfamilies, language classes, and the entire cottage industry that has sprung up around charging adult adoptees for services that they would never need if their Korean families had only been empowered to keep and raise them in the first place.

Although the complete economic history of Korean adoption has yet to be researched, we can verify and prove some recent statistics. For instance, we know that an unwed mother’s baby increases overseas. Viewed as nothing more than a burden and a social threat in Korea, the child, if sent overseas for adoption, suddenly becomes worth 9,500,000 won to the facilitating agency.

The fees of a maximum of 9,616,000 won for a foreign adoption and 2,198,000 won for a domestic adoption were set up as guidelines by the ministry in September 2001 and seemed to have been followed in 2008. It is probable that the guidelines were followed because activists worked to reveal the adoption agencies’ corruption during the National Assembly audit conducted for the year 2007.

During the national audit conducted from July 7-18, 2008, the National Assembly found that both Holt and Social Welfare Society had overcharged for adoptions during 2007. Holt charged  4,998,000 won for domestic adoptions, $11,000 for U.S. adoptions, and $10,000 for European adoptions. Meanwhile, Social Welfare Society charged $16,340 for U.S. adoptions, $ 22,300 for Canada, and $12,000 for Europe for Sweden – all in violation of the ministry’s guidelines.

It is no wonder that the agencies, which are able to draw a bigger profit from foreign adoptions than domestic ones, prefer to conduct foreign adoptions rather than domestic ones, also in violation of the ministry’s guidelines. In 2007, Holt performed 139 out of 153 or 90.3% of its adoptions to foreign countries without following the country’s policy of “domestic adoption priority policy” first.  In the case of Social Welfare Society 27 out of 30 children or 90% were also sent to foreign countries first without following the country’s domestic adoption priority policy.

In addition, Holt was found to have improperly categorized 13.3% of its 2007 income. It categorized a total of 4,148,000,000 won (4,148백만원) under “donations” when the money should have gone under “adoption introduction fees.” Holt stated that 90% of its donations were “undesignated.”

The ministry believes that in principle, parents should come to Korea to pick up their children. When that is not possible, a trained professional should be designated as an escort. However, as shown in the 2008 audit, Holt sent 45.4% of its children through escorts in 2007 — 227 children to the U.S. and 18 to Europe.  Moreover, the children were mostly escorted by students going to study abroad, not professionals. To participate in this service, Holt in Korea took 450,000 from each escort as a “donation.” Meanwhile, Holt in the U.S. charged adoptive parents $2,900-$3,410 for this same service.

In the case of Social Welfare Society, the rate of escort was 190 (65.7%) in 2007, and escorts were charged “donation” fees of 450,000 won for a round trip flight and 300,000 won for a one-way flight, for a total of 36,750,000 won in 2007.

Although the adoption agencies are asking for “donations” from volunteers, and “escort fees” from adoptive parents, airlines give discounts on fares for international adoption. Airlines advertising discounted fares online for international adoption include Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines, United and Lufthansa.

On the American side, we are able to get a glimpse of the adoption industry’s finances, albeit piecemeal, through their Web sites. The American branch of Holt, for instances, charges American adoptive parents $20,215 for the “adoption fee” alone, which excludes travel for an escorted Korean child, postplacement fees, and various other costs. The adoption fee that American parents pay for a Korean child through Children’s Home Society & Family Services (CHSFS) is $17,350 for a healthy child or a discounted $14,350 for a disabled child, plus a “coordination fee” of about $5,000 and “fees associated with adoption study and post-placement fees.

In addition to the agencies’ Web sites, we can trace the money through agencies’ federal non-profit organization tax returns on Web sites such as Guidestar. (www.guidestar.org seems to be under construction currently).  To put together the whole puzzle on just the American side would require examining scores of records from each Korean agency’s partner agency in the U.S. that is authorized to take children from Korea, and those U.S. agencies’ partners as well. It should be noted that the term “non-profit does not mean that all the workers are volunteers, or that paid workers are not paid high salaries. Non-profit or not-for-profit simply means that the organization should try to balance its expenses and income every year to zero, and that they are exempt in the U.S. from federal taxes. (Agencies that are not authorized to take children from Korea can get them from the agencies that are.) Despite that research being beyond the scope of this paper, a few numbers are readily apparent after a cursory glance:

In 2007, CHSFS earned over $26 million in revenue and claimed over $27 million in expenses. Of its “income-producing activities,” it listed the vast majority of its $21.5 million in revenue from two sources: “service fees” ($8.6 million) and “international adoption” ($7.7 million). Its president and CEO earned a package worth $257,616 in one year. In addition, it sent Eastern Social Welfare Society $1,106,015 and Social Welfare Society $500,900. (It sent more money only to Ethiopia.)

More familiar to Koreans is the Holt agency. From its origins in South Korea, Holt has become a multinational corporation with offices in South Korea, Bulgaria, China, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, Uganda, and Vietnam. It also has operations in Mongolia, Kazahstan, and Romania, South Africa and North Korea, where it sent $107,368 in 2007.

Like CHSFS and every other adoption agency, Holt earns its revenue almost exclusively from adoptions themselves, with a little money coming in from fundraising activities and investments. In 2008, it earned over $11.3 million combined from “adoption fees,” “transportation fees,” “tour fees,” and “adoptee services.” Second only to its vice president of social services, who made over $155,000 in 2007, the vice presidents of marketing and public relations were the most highly paid people. The vice president of marketing made almost $142,000 in 2007, while the vice president of public relations, who is herself a Korean adoptee, made $95,410. Further showing the emphasis that Holt places on advertising and image, it spent over half a million dollars in one year on a Christian rock band that performs all over the world to promote the adoption business and attend to the positive image of Holt.

Jane Jeong Trenka was born in the U.S. military district of Yongsan-gu in Seoul, South Korea, and was sent to the U.S. for adoption in 1972. With Julia Chinyere Oparah and Sun Yung Shin, Trenka is co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing and Transracial Adoption and the author of two memoirs: The Language of Blood and Fugitive Visions. She makes her living by correcting English grammar at night, and volunteers by day for the Seoul-based organization TRACK (Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea), which advocates for a full understanding of the practice of adoption, both past and present, to improve the human rights of children and families affected by adoption.

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Other Articles in this Series:

Structural Violence, Social Death, and International Adoption: Part 1 of 4

Structural Violence, Social Death, and International Adoption: Part 2 of 4

Structural Violence, Social Death, and International Adoption: Part 4 of 4

Related Article:

Counseling Services of Adoption Agencies Experienced by Unwed Mothers

Other Articles by Jane:

Nothing About Us Without Us

What Does “Gotcha” Mean?

Abuses in Adoption from S. Korea

Transnational Adoption and the “Financialization of Everything”