South Korea Apologizes for Overseas Adoption Abuses

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung issued a formal apology for the country’s troubled history of overseas adoptions, acknowledging 'unjust human rights violations' and offering condolences to adoptees, birth families and adoptive families. He was responding to a Truth and Reconciliation Commission report that reviewed 367 complaints and cited 56 cases, finding widespread fraud and abuse—including falsified documents, infant substitution, poor vetting of parents and use of adoptions to reduce welfare costs—and assigning government responsibility. Officials say more than 170,000 South Korean children were adopted abroad since the Korean War, with an average of over 100 per year in the 2020s. Lee’s apology coincided with South Korea formally becoming a party to the Hague Convention on intercountry adoption, and he vowed stronger safeguards and oversight going forward.