President (military dictator) Park Chung-hee rose to power through a coup d'état and ruled S. Korea with an iron fist from 1963 until his assassination in 1979. The international adoption program, then used as a form of population control, is part of his ongoing legacy. His daughter, Park Geun-hye, will likely run in S. Korea's next presidential election in 2013.

This past May, South Korea — renowned within adoption circles for its transparent and above-board practices — was taken to task by the committee on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Geneva. The committee said there is “a possibility of abuse” in intercountry adoptions from South Korea.

On Nov. 10, 2009, a coalition of adopted Koreans, unwed Korean mothers, and our allies will go to the South Korean parliament and confirm that yes, abuses have occurred, and are still occurring.

Our bill written to change the laws that have allowed these abuses to occur is sponsored by Rep. Choi Young-Hee (Democratic Party) and will be introduced in the public hearing. We will reveal both what is wrong with the current law, and how we propose to fix it.

The following is the text of my speech that I will give to lawmakers, Korean citizens, and concerned parties living and operating in Korea on the human rights abuses that have occurred as a result of the adoption law.

Speech to be given by Jane Jeong Trenka at the National Assembly Nov. 10. 2009, on the adoption law revision bill by TRACK, ASK, KoRoot, unwed moms, and Gonggam lawyers.

My thanks to Rep. Choi Young-hee for the great honor of participating on this historic occasion, the first time that adoptees and single mothers have proposed an entirely new bill to the National Assembly to revise South Korea’s adoption law. I also wish to acknowledge Choi Young-hee’s staff, who have met with us regularly, as well as the members of the coalition: the Gonggam Public Interest Lawyers, the single mothers’ group Miss Mamma Mia, KoRoot, ASK, and TRACK.

I believe it is an unintended benefit to South Korea that while adoptees had no choice in their adoptions to foreign countries, they are now able to report back to Korea on the country’s adoption program and how post-adoption and Korean family services may now be improved. While workers in adoption agencies have certainly voiced their opinions to the Korean government before, I believe it is significant that our bill has been written by a coalition of concerned Korean citizens and diasporic Koreans, international adoptees, and single Korean mothers who will reap absolutely no economic, professional, or social benefit from continuing the adoption system as it has been practiced in the past. Instead, we look forward to meeting international standards of human rights and justice. We seek to create a system of child welfare in Korea that can be a source of not shame and guilt, but pride and self-sufficiency, for all Koreans.

Today I will give a brief critique on the current law and the problems it has caused for adoptees and their families. I hope these criticisms will be heard by parliament members and the countries influenced by Korean adoption as the result of many lifetimes worth of experience and our sincerest efforts to understand the laws that have profoundly and permanently affected our individual lives, as well as the modern history and society of South Korea. I speak in English, but my wish is for the parliament members to hear the adoptees not as foreigners, but people whose mothers spoke to us in Korean while they carried us in their wombs, and who were born as Korean citizens, but whose families were abandoned by the state.

Gonggam public interest lawyer So Rami will give a detailed presentation on the coalition’s revisions, which were written as specific solutions to specific problems. I will now detail these problems in the hope that these findings will within the next five years lead to a truth and reconciliation process for the adoption community of Korea that identifies past abuses and prevents future abuses so that the relationship between Korean society and the adoption community may at last be healed.

The Korean government’s expediting and preferencing of adoption over the preservation of the child’s original family is a major flaw that has led to the construction of the country’s international adoption program that has now notoriously sent up to 200,000 children overseas. While many adoptions appear to have been processed completely legally on paper, many returning adoptees have found that in reality there were abuses that occurred in order to facilitate their adoptions. The American scholar Dr. David Smolin calls this “child laundering,” a reference to money laundering or processing something that is illegal in a way to make it look legal on the surface. In South Korea, these abuses have been documented by TRACK as follows:

Documented Abuses

1.  Unclear relinquishment – TRACK has found cases where the parent did not relinquish under real name, a person other than the parent relinquished, only one parent relinquished, the child was relinquished for domestic but NOT international adoption, or the signature on the relinquishment form appears to be forged. The current law holds agencies responsible for locating children’s parents in order to make sure they can be sent for adoption, which is a conflict of interest.

2. Kidnappings within the family, particularly by paternal relatives and grandmothers have been documented by TRACK. The mothers’ custody rights were and still are too weak under the law.

3. Misrepresentation cases are rampant in the adoption community.  On paper, the children are misrepresented to adoptive parents and Western adoption agencies by changing information such as age, social history, medical history, or marital status of the mother.

4. Contradictions in the adoption file of the same child have been documented by TRACK. Contradictions may be found going from Korean-language record to Korean-language record (from police to orphanage to agency, or intra-agency), or going from Korean-language record to English-language record (or other Western language).

5. Kidnapping by the orphanage is another oft-repeated story, such as in cases like Toby Dawson. The Korean parent came looking and they were told that the child was not there, or had died. Older children may have known their identities and home addresses and wished to go home, but were kept inside the orphanage.

6. Hojuk forgery. All correctly processed international adoptions used an orphan hojuk to expedite the adoption, but in the case of older children who had already been registered on their family’s hojuk, that means an orphan hojuk had to have been made in order to process the adoption. This is a falsification of a legal document.

7. Citizenship forgery. The child was recorded as having been sent to a different adoptive country than they really were, and were recorded as having gained the citizenship of the wrong country.

8. Identity forgery. In cases such as that famously recorded by Deann Borshay in First Person Plural, the child was switched for another child who was not able to be sent at the time the adoption was scheduled.

Government oversight is not adequate. We need a watchdog.

It is because of these various abuses performed at the time of adoption that are listed above, as well as the inadequate post-adoption services reflected in the astonishingly low 2.7% rate of international adoptee reunions, that a watchdog must be created. It must have the legal authority to monitor adoption processes, including adoption fees and the links between unwed mothers’ facilities and adoptions. So far there is no legal basis for such a body, although KCARE has the potential to be strengthened into such a body and is already funded by the Ministry of Health Welfare and Family. This body must also have the legal authority to authorize police searches for birthfamilies, and hold all the original files of the adoptees and mediate reunions as an objective third party. This body would also serve as the central authority if and when the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption is ratified by South Korea. In addition, it would control the registration and permission procedures for adoption.

Babies can be relinquished in the womb, but mothers need more time to make a decision.

Other practices, which may be considered legal by the Korean government, are in reality not ethical. Currently the law has allowed children to be easily relinquished while still in the womb. This is not ethical. A mother should have more time and adequate counseling from an objective, non-adoption related body in order to make an informed decision. The ties between the unwed mothers’ homes and adoption agencies and facilities such as hospitals has created an atmosphere of “baby farming” that depends on the vulnerability of unwed mothers and coercion in order to secure a supply of babies to send for adoption.

Family Preservation is better than “Adoption Promotion.”

The current law is called the Special Act Relating to the Promotion and Procedure of Adoption. While the government spent 104,299,000 won to promote adoption in 2008, the domestic adoptions have fallen numerically from 1964 children in 2002 to 1388 children in 2007 and 1306 in 2008. The success of the adoption promotion campaign is questionable. Our coalition believes that the obvious answer to childcare is not to use government funds to promote adoption, but to strengthen support for original families, extended families and single mothers so they can raise their own children. Every child already has a family.

Adoptees and their families lack of access to information.

There is no legal framework that guarantees the human right of the adoptee to access his or her own information. In addition, there is no legal framework guaranteeing the right of the the birthfamily, including siblings, to try to initiate contact with the adoptee. There is also no current law ensuring that the agencies provide adequate and timely search and reunion services, and issues of adoptees inheriting from natural parents are problematic.

Proxy adoptions are convenient for adopters, but bad for children.

Proxy adoptions have been used as a matter of convenience to transnationally adoptive parents, allowing their children to be delivered to them without having to travel to Korea. However, this introduces several more complications and caretakers, including the escort on the airplane, into the child’s journey from Korea to her adoptive country. Numerous breaks in caretaking have been shown to be confusing and traumatic to children, especially babies.

Adoptees should not be stripped of their Korean citizenship.

By law, the Korean government strips all adoptees of their Korean citizenship when they gain the citizenship of their host country. Adoptees should be able to hold dual citizenship throughout childhood and determine their own citizenship for themselves at the age of majority in order to make the paperwork and legal identity continuous. This will also make emigrations through adoption more like other emigrations.

The birth registration system is insufficient.

The law does not provide an adequate system for positively identifying and registering children at birth. Children who are secretly adopted within Korea — meaning they are not told they are adopted and are registered as the biological child of adoptive parents — are denied their right to identity. In addition, children who are not registered at birth are at risk of trafficking.

Children should have a say about their own adoptions at a younger age.

While in practice this applies more to domestic adoption, the age at which a child can consent to his or her own adoption is currently set at 15 years Western age. The age should be reduced to 12 to match the maturity of children these days.

There are too many disrupted adoptions.

Also pertaining more to domestic adoptions is the problem of many broken adoptions. Adoptive parents are not screened and educated adequately, and the result is adoption disruptions. There are currently no laws stipulating the period for consideration of adoption or the post-adoption service period. There should be more specific and stricter regulations on adoption disruptions.

The two sets of adoption laws –civil and international — are not integrated.

Another problem with the Korean law is that the laws that govern domestic and international adoption are not integrated. The case of Jade illustrates the kind of occurrence that can happen because of that. As you recall, the Korean girl named “Jade” was adopted by Dutch foreigners through the civil law. Later these diplomats abandoned the girl, who presumably still had Korean citizenship, in Hong Kong.

The Korean adoption laws must be brought up to international standards.

Finally, Korea’s adoption system must be brought up to international standards. Although it is not the within the realm of the bill we are discussing today, I would like to remind all that the South Korean government has expressed reservations to Article 21 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that adoptions should be handled by a central independent authority, and should not be influenced extensively by individuals or private organizations. This reservation should be removed and the rest of the UNCRC strictly implemented and adhered to. In addition, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child last year pointed out that the South Korean adoption agencies do not keep sufficient documents on the adopted children and that the South Korean government still does not seem to be fully managing the adoption system. Finally, I would like to point out that the only UN country besides Somalia that has not ratified the UNCRC is the United States, and that is the main country we are sending our children to for adoption.

Summary

In closing, I would like to note that South Korea, the host of next year’s G20 conference, has been making big efforts to boost its national brand and image overseas lately. These efforts have centered on business concerns and things like making a new logo for the government. But a more meaningful way that South Korea can improve its image overseas is to first solve its human rights issues at home.

South Korea’s discrimination against single mothers on both the social and the government level is not a secret — it is well-documented in the foreign press, and there are 200,000 adoptees scattered around Europe and the U.S. who are walking, breathing testaments to such discrimination. And in the countries that we were sent to, such discrimination on the basis of marital status is absolutely unthinkable.

It is truly in South Korea’s national interest to help single mothers raise their children, and not just because it will make the country look better. Forty years from now, who will grow and cook our food, drive our trains, and work in Korea’s companies? Would it be alright with you if the person who takes care of you in the hospital when you are old is an educated and skilled doctor who happens to have been born the child of a single mother? Taking care of single mothers and their children not only makes sense as an investment in the future labor force of Korea. It is just the right thing to do.

But as of this year, our law has yet to be passed, the overseas adoptions still continue at the rate of over 1,000 a year, and single mothers are still not getting any meaningful assistance from the government. The only way for South Korea to save face on the global stage is to quickly and decisively solve its own problems domestically. We need not just economic leadership, but also ethical leadership. We have the golden opportunity this fall do exactly that. I urge all the lawmakers here to work with Rep. Choi Young-hee to help us achieve our vision for a just and abundant future for all Koreans. Thank you so much for your listening.

Watch a Korean TV documentary on adoption abuses. (subtitled and posted on YouTube by permission of SBS)

Coalition Web sites

TRACK, KoRoot, ASK, Gonggam lawyers, Miss Mamma Mia

Jane Jeong Trenka was sent for adoption to Minnesota in 1972, and returned to live in Korea in 2004. She is the author of Fugitive Visions and The Language of Blood, and co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption. She works at Yonhap News Agency in Seoul and is president of TRACK.

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Lee Pil-rye, Trenka's "birthmother"

November is National Adoption Month. What would such a celebration of adoption, whether in the U.S. or another country, mean to my Korean birthmother?

At the time my mother became a “birthmother,” I was six months old, and my sister was four years old. Because she passed away about nine years ago, I will take the liberty of imagining what she might say about the meaning of adoption in her life, if she could read other people’s blogs in English, and if she could blog back.

What Adoption Means to Me
By Lee Pil-rye

I did not give birth to my child “with my heart.” I gave birth to my child with my body – painful, and tearing.

I did not “give” my child to another mother as a “gift.”

I was desperate and without the means to earn enough money myself. I and my children were victims of domestic violence. There was nowhere for us to go. No one would help us. We were so alone. I had no other choice but to relinquish my children.

But my children did not feel relinquished. They felt abandoned.  I am so, so sorry.

As a woman in a profoundly patriarchal society, I was not allowed to divorce a man who hurt me. I did not have strong custody rights over my own children. Laws did not protect me or my daughters.

I was so desperate that I signed away my baby for international adoption the day I brought her to the orphanage. I signed her away with my red-inked thumbprint because I had no stamp. I didn’t know what international adoption meant. I thought my daughters would just live well in another country and be raised in privilege, send pictures and letters, and then come back to me, their mother.

The noise of the airplane taking off tore my heart.

Trenka 2 weeks after arrival in the U.S. with her adoptive mother

I went mad.

I went to church.

Maria, comfort me.

The church gave me eggs, and pencils.

When I met my older daughter again, so many years later, I pressed her face to my breast to show her that I made her with my own body. That I indulged her, allowing her to nurse for years, as long as she wanted. How much I loved her. How much I wanted to show her that. But I only frightened and repulsed her.

I prepared her favorite food and she did not remember it.

I took her to the old places where she used to play, and she did not remember them.

I spoke to her in the language she spoke as a child, and she could not understand me.

I called her by her name and she did not recognize herself.

She did not recognize me.

Maria, comfort me.

Is this our Father’s plan?

What does “Gotcha” mean?

What have I gotten from this?

I am not a whore, not a saint, not a storybook character.

I am a real person.

I am a real mother.

My name is Lee Pil-rye.

My children were never orphans.

This is what adoption means to me.

************

Lee Pil-rye’s daughter, Jane Jeong Trenka, was sent for international adoption to Minnesota in 1972, and returned to live in Korea in 2004. She is the author of Fugitive Visions and The Language of Blood, and co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption. She is president of TRACK (Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea).

Related Articles

The Narrative of International Adoption

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Do you believe that access to medical information is important for all people, including adoptees and the children of adoptees? Are you a Korean adoptee who believes that you should have a say in the laws that Korea makes about the lives of existing adoptees and future adoptees? Would you like fair laws to govern the birthfamily search process? Do believe that unwed Korean mothers should have access to objective information and be supported in keeping their own children? If you said “yes” to any of these questions, you may be interested in what is happening this fall in Seoul with the revisions of Korea’s adoption laws.

South Korea’s “special adoption law” that governs international adoption has been amended nine times since its creation in 1961. It is this law, along with the laws governing domestic adoptions, that are now being prepared for their 10th revision. Although the adoptees were not originally planned to be included in the discussion, an outcry has arisen in Seoul from the adoptees: “Nothing about us without us.”

The coalition of TRACK (Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea) ASK (Adoptee Solidarity Korea) and KoRoot, along with TRACK’s legal advisors, the Gonggam Public Interest Lawyers, have been participating in the law revision process through various channels since last winter. This summer, a group of single mothers called Miss Mamma Mia, who are raising their own children, also joined our coalition. (Click to read the recent New York Times article on the moms).

The main point on which our bill differs from the goverment’s is on domestic adoption. Our coalition preferences support for single mothers over the government’s push to promote domestic adoption. However, we are also addressing domestic adoption because we now have a great opportunity to improve rights for domestic adoptees, most of whom don’t even know they are adopted.

Our main demands are:

1. Integrate the laws that govern domestic and international adoption, and bring the laws up to international standards.
2. Put children first.
3. Strengthen support for children’s’ original families.
4. Strengthen the rights of adoptees and children who will be adopted.
5. Install a government watchdog over the adoption agencies.

Our coalition has struggled for adoptee participation in the process by directly approaching lawmakers and ministry officials, writing letters, petitioning, using outdoor puppet and mask performances to draw attention to our cause and educate the public, and being actively involved in the powerful and influential South Korean media through TV broadcasts and newspaper and magazine articles. TRACK has also aggressively pushed for language access for adoptees at public hearings.

After prolonged struggle with the government, we won a major victory in August when our lawyer, So Rami, was appointed as one of the members of the government’s newly formed task force on adoption law revisions. This task force replaced an earlier research group led by Prof. Huh Nam-soon. The new task force seems to be a great improvement over the former research group, and will meet weekly for eight sessions from Sept. 3-Oct. 30.

The personnel on the task force are one government official, three professors in the fields of law and social work, and four experts in law and women’s issues. In addition, two guests will be invited to each meeting. The general goal of the government’s proposal is to promote domestic adoption and work toward ratifying the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which also must involve the cooperation of the Ministry of Justice.

The third and last public hearing on the adoption law (date TBA) will center on the task force’s recommendations, which will be combined with the recommendations of Korean Women’s Development Institute and the combined recommendations of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family and the KCARE to make one government proposal. The government proposal will be submitted to the National Assembly for ratification into law in 2010.

The coalition of TRACK, ASK and KoRoot is taking a two-pronged approach to the law revisions. We are, as explained above, going through the government process as much as possible and have our representative on the task force. However, it is unlikely that our suggestions will all make it into the government’s bill. Therefore, we will also introduce our own draft bill to the National Assembly under sponsorship from a parlimentarian. TRACK has been developing its relationship with lawmakers for over one year, and the coalition started more aggressively lobbying multiple parties this September during the national audit.

The laws are being written by our lawyer in Korean, of course, so what you see in English is a translation. Our revisions are outlined below:

Integration of civil law adoption procedure and special (international) law adoption procedure

• It is necessary to set an objective of making laws that convert the old orphan special adoption law (no longer in existence) into the inheritance and adoption special law (in existence today).
• The civil law for adopting children domestically should be extended to all children, not just “children in need of protection.” (The purpose of this is to systematize domestic adoption.)
• The civil law should conform to and supplement international standards to form an advanced and complete adoption system that includes domestic processes for regular and relative adoption.

Provisions to put the human rights of the child at the heart of the adoption process

• The age at which a child can consent to his/her own adoption should be adjusted from 15 years to 12 years (Western age counting system).
• Parents have the right to proper counseling before sending a child for adoption. (For instance, the practice of offering original families information on raising their own children should be strengthened, while counseling by adoption agencies should be banned.)
• Deliberation time for relinquishment must be enforced. The criteria for agreement to adoption must be strengthened.
• Criteria for adoptive parents must be strengthened covering areas of criminal records, alcohol abuse, career. Adoptive parents have to be responsible for education to prepare them to adopt.
• The national organ should control the registration and permission procedures for adoption.

Strengthening of the child’s original family through country and administrative district (city, county, etc.) support

• Provision for single mothers who deliver and raise children to apply to government for support.

Strengthening the rights of adoptees and children who will be adopted

• Guarantee the adoptee’s right to access information.
• Strengthen the child’s opportunity to give their opinion on adoption.

Rearrangement and solidification of the relationship between the adoption agencies and KCARE

• It is the duty of the government to make specific laws that preference domestic adoption over international adoption.
• Before the baby is adopted, all the necessary papers should be in order.
• It is a duty to offer post-adoption service should be offered (right now they are offered only until 6 months after adoption).
• There should be a watchdog introduced to monitor the adoption fees.

This has been an intense, exhilarating, sometimes frustrating but always wonderful and educational struggle. We have many supporters who are Korean nationals and Korean Americans who have helped the adopted Koreans greatly. We are proud, blessed, and grateful to be part of a process that will benefit not only the internationally adopted Koreans, but also the domestically adopted Koreans, our 1.5 million Korean relatives still living in Korea, and vulnerable Korean families at risk of being separated. Overall, our work will add to the dignity and self-determination of the Korean people. We ask for your support as we take this struggle to the final stage this coming fall and in 2010.

Coalition Web sites

TRACK, KoRoot, ASK, Gonggam lawyers, Miss Mamma Mia

Jane Jeong Trenka was sent for adoption to Minnesota in 1972, and returned to live in Korea in 2004. She is the author of Fugitive Visions and The Language of Blood, and co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption. She works at Yonhap News Agency in Seoul and is president of TRACK.

This article is reprinted with permission from Korean Quarterly.

Related Articles

The Narrative of International Adoption

Transnational Adoption and the “Financialization of Everything”

EDITORIAL International Adoption and the Fight for Human Rights