Woman seeks compensation from South Korea over her forced adoption to France in 1984
By Kim Tong-Hyung
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – A 52 -year -old woman who was adopted in a French family in 1984 without the consent of her biological parents filed a request for remuneration from the government of South Korea, citing how the authorities of the time documents her fraudulently as an orphan although she had a family.
The rare petition deposited by Yooree Kim occurred for months after the South Korea Truth Commission acknowledged that it and 55 others adopted as victims of human rights violations, including the origins of falsified children, lost files and child protection failures.
His case was highlighted last year in an Associated Press survey in collaboration with Frontline (PBS). The investigation revealed that the South Korea government, Western countries and adoption agencies worked in tandem for decades to provide some 200,000 Korean children to parents abroad by dubious or downright unscrupulous means.
Their stories triggered a calculation that shaken the international adoption industry, which took root in South Korea before spreading throughout the world. Under pressure from adopted, the Government of Seoul launched an investigation of investigation and hundreds submitted their cases for examination.
Choi Jung Kyu, Kim’s lawyer, said that his administrative request, filed under a little -used provision of the State’s remuneration law, would be revolutionary in the event of success. He said it could create a precedent so that others are looking for compensation without enduring long difficult proceedings against the state that rarely succeeds.
Whatever the result, it is observed as a gauge in the way the government assesses its responsibility for dubious practices that have spoiled the South Korea adoption program, which culminated in the 1970s and 1980s.
The government faces calls to assume responsibility
The government has never recognized the direct responsibility for past adoption practices and has not yet acted on the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
After a survey of almost three years, the Commission concluded in March that the State is responsible for facilitating an adoption program filled with fraud and abuse, motivated by efforts to reduce social protection costs. He urged the government to apologize and develop plans to combat the accuracy grievances.
The Ministry of Justice has technically four weeks to decide Kim’s request, but nothing requires it to respect this deadline. His petition, deposited on August 21, does not specify an amount, leaving the government to propose an appropriate sum. It also reserves the right to potentially pursue a civil lawsuit against the State, said Choi.
“How can we even start to quantify the damage it has endured?” Said Choi.
Kim told the AP Wednesday that his adoption, recognized by the commission as illegal, was “of kidnapping and forced disappearance”. South Korea has committed the “greatest part of the crime,” she said, because it has approved adoptions “by proxy” to Western parents who have never visited South Korea.
This is, she said, “a sale of children sponsored by the state.”
Atrocious memories
Kim was 11 years old when she and her younger brother were sent by Holt Children’s Services, a Korean adoption agency, to a couple in France.
After a divorce, Kim’s impoverished mother placed the children in an orphanage so that they could at least eat, a common practice at the time. She says that she has never consented to their adoption and only discovered her after her return to the orphanage to find them. Kim’s father also said that he did not know that his children were adopted and had never given his consent.
Kim remembers having been physically, verbally and sexually abused in his adopted home, allegations that his parents refused. A judge rejected a complaint that she filed against her adoptive father for insufficient evidence.
Kim returned to South Korea in 1994, but for years wanted her biological parents, believing that they refuse to give up their children. This changed in 2022 when she confirmed through residential files that she and her brother were still registered under their father and had never been abandoned, a discovery which pushed her to ask for the responsibility of governments and adoption agencies in South Korea and France.
Kim’s adoption documents contain contradictory stories about how she and her brother were made eligible for adoption.
One of them said they had been abandoned by their paternal rear tinking, which Kim never remembers meeting. Another document indicates that Kim’s mother has accepted adoption. A third party says that the brothers and sisters were found “wandering” in the streets and were “emotionally hardened” by experience.
The gaps built a false chain of tutorials which allowed the adoptions, the orphanage transferring the parental rights which he never rightly owned in Holt, who then placed the brothers and sisters to the French adopters.
Kim’s adoption was clearly illegal, given the lack of consent of her parents who were easily identifiable, said Choi. None of Kim’s files indicate an effort to contact her parents. Kim’s petition also cites screening failures linked to his adoptive parents. His adoptive father was 50 years old when he received the brothers and sisters, above the age limit of 45 fixed at the time by the South Korean authorities.
Holt did not respond to repeated requests to comment on the case of Kim.
Difficult legal battles
The Truth Commission confirmed human rights violations in 56 of the 367 complaints filed by adopted before ending its investigation in April, weeks before its deadline of inquiry. The fate of the 311 other cases, either deferred or incompletely examined, now depends on whether the legislators establish a new truth commission through the legislation.
There were clear limits to the Commission report, which did not profoundly examine the profit structures of adoption agencies, their links with children’s sources such as hospitals or countries. Only 45 complaints came from the adopted of the United States, leaving the largest beneficiary of under-represented Korean children.
Some adopts hope to use the committee’s conclusions to bring prosecution against their agencies or the Korean government. But others, including Kim, have called on the government to offer specific plans for repairs without forcing adopted to do to court.
Choi, who represents several complainants pursuing the government on human rights violations linked to the past dictatorships of Seoul, said that they often fight with prolonged legal battles while the government frequently rejects the conclusions of the Truth Commission as not conclusive or cites expired prescription deadlines.
Even a modest payment of Kim’s petition would have a symbolic weight, recognizing the responsibility of the government and will potentially strengthen future legal complaints, he said.
