Korea's Lost Children

[unreal.livejournal.com]

"I was abandoned in a public market in the beginning of winter", claims one Korean adoptee.

Every year, around 1,000 South Korean children are given up for adoption in Western countries. The overseas adoption programme began in the 1950s as the impoverished government's answer to the masses of mixed-race orphans from the Korean War.

All told, around 200,000 Korean children have been adopted overseas over the past 60 years. About 300 of them have since returned to live in Korea – and many are now involved in trying to change the adoption laws.

In this programme, BBC journalist Ellen Otzen meets Jane Trenka and Suki Leith, both of whom were adopted by American families, to explore the impact foreign adoption has had on them.

Successive governments have pledged to end the practice of trans-national adoption. South Korea is now one of the world's most developed countries, and has one of the lowest birth rates globally, so why are Korean children still being sent away?

Today, 89% of Korean children sent overseas for adoption are born to unwed mothers, who say they are approached by private adoption agencies during their pregnancies and urged to give their children up for adoption.

One of the major players, Holt International Adoption Agency, has often been criticized by Korean adoptees for disregarding the rights of unwed mothers and setting up a system that made Korean "mail-order babies" possible.

Agency head, Molly Holt, argues that the organisation's main goal is simply to give "unwanted" Korean babies "a permanent, loving family."

The adoptees say it is time the Korean government makes laws that promote family preservation instead of international adoption.

listen to the documentary on their website since I can't embed it

Source: bbc

Comments

[strawberryxuyu.livejournal.com]

Considering by adoptive brother is korean, this is saddening me.

[strawberryxuyu.livejournal.com]

And also making me wonder how he was treated before coming here in Canada...

[paigeeybby.livejournal.com]

Very interesting read and listen, thanks for the post!

[ribbon2sky.livejournal.com]

it does seem that way. which is sad

[shynygal.livejournal.com]

I have known a lot of Korean adoptees and none of them have turned out well. The ones I know have turned out bitter, resentful, and damn near hating their adoptive parents. One girl I know actually found out her birth mother has been looking for her her entire life because she has like 6 siblings all girls and she was the 7th girl so her father didn't want to support another girl so he took the girl to an orphanage and told her mother the baby died.

[geesoo.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, that's rather sad, how did she take the news? For the one Korean adoptee I know personally, it seems to the opposite for him.

[geesoo.livejournal.com]

I'm curious about some friend's, adopted from Korea, history. I wonder how he was treated before coming to America.

[aileenback.livejournal.com]

I want to adopt a korean baby sometime in my future..

It is so sad that people just abandon kids anywhere :(

[omissnyo.livejournal.com]

I was thinking the same thing..

[umbrella-smile.livejournal.com]

who say they are approached by private adoption agencies during their pregnancies and urged to give their children up for adoption.

WHAT THE FUCK?!
Granted it is the ultimate choice of the mother to give her child up, but damn approaching and convincing? That is disgusting.

I grew up with a single father and am curious, are single fathers treated better in Korea than single mothers?

[honeyfunnybunny.livejournal.com]

I know a lot of korean adoptees her in Denmark(my korean classes are actually developed by a comunity for adoptees), and most of the people I know want to search for their real parents or at least just see them once to ask them why and to let them know who they grew up to become. But most are scared. Most of them say that it's just something about not feeling wanted there :/

[piano-furniture.livejournal.com]

the correct word is "birth parents" :)

[luvey.livejournal.com]

this...and being more accepting of mixed children (especially those who are NOT Caucasian/Korean mix)

[iheartomntd.livejournal.com]

honestly I've heard some much crap about Holt International, I wonder how they are still in business.

[piano-furniture.livejournal.com]

i used to go to their summer camps as a kid. i was adopted through a different agency from korea, but they had adoptee summer camps. they were wonderful when i was younger, but a bit too religious. after about the 4th or 5th year the camps started going downhill but i am still friends with most of the people i went to those camps with.

[icedevil0289.livejournal.com]

wow this is just heart breaking to read. These poor kids. I hope they all find loving families.

[kpop-arsenal.livejournal.com]

i hope all the children abandoned in the world will find loving homes and families. not just physically abandoned but also emotionally. it saddens me that there are so many "unwanted" kids.

I personally don't see a problem with overseas adoptions (i plan to adopt from overseas in the future too). I mean if the child gets a loving home and family, even if its one child, it means one less child off the street. ♥

hopefully Korea finds a solution to this.

[piano-furniture.livejournal.com]

there will always be those situations where a child was unwanted, but oftentimes it is more complicated than that - cultural standards, shame, lack of readiness, the mother being barely an adult herself ...

reasons for putting a child up for adoption are a lot more complicated than a child simply being "unwanted," "evil" agencies shipping off "mail-order babies," and so on.

this book: http://www.adoptshoppe.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=92 i wish for you a wonderful life, is a very interesting book, and i suggest taking a look at it if you would like some insight into the emotions and reasons why so many korean mothers have put their children up for adoption.

when i went back to korea with other adoptees, we went to an unwed mothers home and spoke to women about the same age as our own birth mothers would be. so many of these women think about the children they have put up for adoption daily. it is not an easy decision to make, but in a culture which does not tolerate single mothers, or families who might possibly disown a women for having a child without a husband, adoption is an option. these unwed mothers homes take care of these young girls who can then go into "hiding" for a period of time, receive support, and have the child in secret and return to their lives.

i would never wish a ruined life unto any woman. if adoption is her only option in a complicated culture concerning adoption, that is her only option. i do not resent my birth mother for doing so. she was 21 and became pregnant after sleeping with a man she had only seen a handful of times, and when she told him about her child (me) he disappeared. i am sure it was a very scary and emotional time for her and the decision was not easy. i always think about the alternative too - she could have just have easily had an abortion, but she went through the 9 month of pregnancy to bring me into the world and try to give me a better life, one she could have never given me on her own.

[jeugd1.livejournal.com]

thanks for the link

[decimatedreams.livejournal.com]

Although I'm all for trans-cultural and trans-racial adoptions, I feel like a lot of parents who adopt children from South Korea and are not Korean/Asian still don't know how to deal with the issue of their child's race. Of course not all of them are this way, but I know several Korean adoptees who were adopted into white families and almost all of them have severe issues with racial identity.

Kind of OT, but sometimes I wonder whether they would have been better off with unwed mothers, like this article talks about.

[whynotplay.livejournal.com]

unwed mothers, who say they are approached by private adoption agencies during their pregnancies and urged to give their children up for adoption.

......UGH

[wintersol.livejournal.com]

I've never been a fan of international adoption and I've become less so being in a community where, 90% of the time, the children who are adopted are from countries different of the adopting family, I know that there really isn't anything technically wrong with it. At most, it's the fundamental values and nationality issues that I have a problem with. I do think the Korean government is doing a...not 'good' or 'right', but correct thing in trying to preserve the idea of family in Korea.

[jeugd1.livejournal.com]

the fact that these adoption agencies are urging these mothers
to give up their babies is so fucking sad...they don't even see them as
humans, just something that they can "sell" off to the west
ugh, they make me sick

[letsrelapse.livejournal.com]

I wanted to adopt a korean baby in my future, but after listening to the interview I'm scared that it would result in resentment due to a lack of understanding on my part.
However, the fact that the adoption agencies force these women into giving their babie sup so that they can give them to families in the west really upsets me.

[piano-furniture.livejournal.com]

i do not think that this is true in every case. unfortunately even today koreans are not keen on adopting their own kind. bloodline is still extremely important, and it is shameful to be a single mother - thus this leads to children being put up for adoption with their being no market for adopting within korea.

i think that adoption can be a beautiful thing. if i wasn't adopted, i would be living in an orphanage right now. my life would have been so much different. i wouldn't have been able to accomplish all that i have. i love my parents and would never resent them. they have done nothing but taken a child into their home because they were unable to have one themselves. i have no resentment toward my birth mother. she was in a difficult situation, with no one to turn to.

the only problematic issue is the cross-cultural factor. if you are curious about specifics, feel free to pm me :)

[takumisai.livejournal.com]

;__;

[samrooks.livejournal.com]

ohhhh!!!!!
poor childrens!
:(

[la-geni.livejournal.com]

Man it's hard enough being biracial anywhere. My grandfather was European/Mexican and he got sooooo much shit growing up and as adult. Hate crimes were committed against him. Now, as someone living in the U.S. with supposed equality and what not, I get shit from my fellow Latinos here than I do back in the motherland. Everything from not looking like them, for not being brown enough, telling me if I'm sure I'm not secretly Asian (my aunt gets this too) because I have their coloring (pale/yellow undertones) etc.

I'm like really all of that hate because I don't fall under normal standards? It's fucking depressing.

[shodrive.livejournal.com]

..who say they are approached by private adoption agencies during their pregnancies and urged to give their children up for adoption.
I think sending the kids adoption the kids is way better then just leaving them by the thrash or flushing them down the toilet like they do in my country. We get news of this like, almost everyday and it makes me sick and sad at the same time every time there's news about it

[tribuo-venerati.livejournal.com]

What a heart-breaking post....I really want to scoop up all the children and give them a huge hug. My maternal grandfather started and ran an orphanage in Korea for nearly 30 years. I don't think I will do the same, but I really want to do something to help these children.

[maisoui.livejournal.com]

Koreans really need to open up to the idea of adopting. What else can be done to stop this, otherwise? :(