South Korea’s President Apologises for Decades of Foreign Adoption Scandal

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has issued a formal apology to thousands of overseas adoptees affected by the country’s controversial foreign adoption programme, which operated in the aftermath of the Korean War and for decades after.

In a Facebook statement on Thursday, the president expressed regret for the “anxiety, pain, and confusion” endured by more than 14,000 children sent abroad and their families. The apology came seven months after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that the state violated adoptees’ human rights through systemic malpractice.

The commission, acting on petitions from 367 adoptees across Europe, the United States, and Australia, found that the government facilitated adoptions using falsified records, identity switching, and false claims that children had been abandoned.

Between 1955 and 1999, more than 140,000 South Korean children were adopted overseas, many of them born to unmarried women or as mixed-race children of American soldiers and Korean mothers, at a time when society was strongly resistant to diversity. Although numbers have declined, South Korea continues to send more than 100 children abroad annually, largely the babies of unmarried mothers facing social stigma.

The president pledged to create stronger safeguards for adoptees’ rights and to support those seeking to trace their birth families. His apology follows South Korea’s ratification of the Hague Adoption Convention, which came into effect on Wednesday and is designed to regulate and protect international adoptions.

Written by Adeyemi Adewale