Tag Archives: South Korean adoption

KAAN, NAKASEC, Adoptee Citizenship, and a GoFund Me

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The time is long overdue for the passage of adoptee citizenship legislation, and, as understandably tired as some folks are, we need to gear up more than ever.

Action steps:

(1) See how you can help via Adoptees for Justice. You can click on the QR code in the photo below, which shows Jimmy Byrne, a Korean adoptee who spoke about citizenship at the 2023 KAAN conference.

Photo Description : The photo shows Jimmy Byrne, a Korean adoptee wearing glasses, on a panel at the KAAN conference. There is a QR code on the screen behind him, which has information about the work of Adoptees For Justice.

(2) Support deported adoptees, like Mike Davis. Any and all help is deeply appreciated. Please donate; please share the link.

Photo Description: This is a photo of Mike Davis, an Ethiopian adoptee, on the GoFundMe page that hopes to raise money for Mike’s legal costs so he can return to the United States.
He was deported to Ethiopia in 2005.

Some background info for this post: About a week ago I attended the national conference of KAAN, the Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network. This was the second time I had attended this conference, and, as before, I was presenting a workshop with the wonderful Astrid Castro and Shelise Gieseke of Adoption Mosaic. I also attended several great workshops presented by others.

One was on Adoptee Citizenship, presented by folks from Adoptees for Justice and NAKASEC, the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium. Both groups have been working on the issue of citizenship for many years, including citizenship for international adoptees.

Adoptees from South Korea make up the largest and now oldest group of international adoptees. As such, they have been active in advocacy work for decades, in South Korea and in their adoptive countries. Around 200,000 South Korean children have been brought to the Unites States for adoption; some 18-20,000 of that group are estimated to be without U.S. citizenship. Some have been deported; some do not know they are not citizens. Some are working on getting through the naturalization process.

The NAKASEC and KAAN efforts are not only for Korean adoptees. Adoptees for Justice (A4J), which has connections with NAKASEC and KAAN, is working for all international adoptees, advocating for full and retroactive citizenship.

At the KAAN workshop, the presenters talked about the legislative history of trying to get citizenship enacted. It seemed possible at the end of the last Congress, but failed again, probably for many reasons. I speculate on some of them here. Certainly there was a lot of time, energy, advocacy, prayers, and hope that went into the effort.

Advocates are working on citizenship legislation in the current session of Congress. It won’t be easy, with so much anti-immigrant sentiment and the upcoming elections. Groups like A4J (and I’m sure other groups) are looking at a variety of strategies, such as state and local government resolutions.

Please contact your legislators. Ask them to support citizenship for all international adoptees. Please help deported adoptees. Please spread the word that deported adoptees deserve to come home, and that all international adoptees deserve citizenship. Many thanks.

Holt Children’s Services and Adam Crapser to Appeal South Korean Court Decision on Adoption

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On May 16, 2023, a South Korean court announced its decision on South Korean adoptee Adam Crapser’s lawsuit against both Holt Children’s Services and the government of South Korea. According to an AP article, “A South Korean court on Tuesday ordered the country’s biggest adoption agency to pay 100 million won ($74,700) in damages to a 48-year-old man for mishandling his adoption as a child to the United States, where he faced legal troubles after surviving an abusive childhood before being deported in 2016.

However, the Seoul Central District Court dismissed Adam Crapser’s accusations against the South Korean government, which he saw as responsible for creating an aggressive, profit-driven adoption industry that carelessly removed thousands of children from their families during a child export frenzy in the 1970s and ’80s.”

Last week, Holt Children’s Services announced it is appealing the court’s decision. According to the Korea Times, “the main point of dispute is at what point an adoption agency’s duties as a guardian ends and argued that in Crapser’s case, Holt’s guardianship came to an end upon his arrival in the U.S.” Holt is also arguing that “the special adoption law requiring the verification of an adoptee’s citizenship acquisition and other protections, introduced in 2012, does not apply to Crapser’s case.”

Adam Crapser is also appealing “the court ruling that did not recognize the government’s liability in his troubled adoption.”

South Korea Truth and Reconciliation Commission Agrees to Review Hundreds of Adoption Files

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South Korea has the distinction of the largest and now oldest group of international adoptees, sent mostly to the U.S., Western Europe, and Australia. Is it a bellwether of sorts that South Korea is now examining the records of those adoptees for falsehoods and inaccuracies?

According to an AP article today, “South Korean inquiry to look into 237 more foreign adoptions suspected to have laundered origins.” the South Korea Truth and Reconciliation Committee has agreed to investigate nearly 300 cases of “South Korean adoptees who suspect their family origins were manipulated to facilitate their adoptions in Europe and the United States. 

More than 370 adoptees from Europe, North America and Australia filed applications last year demanding their cases be investigated. 

When the commission said it would investigate the first 34 cases in December 2022, it said the records of many adoptees sent to the West had clearly been manipulated and falsely described them as orphans or faked their identities by borrowing the details of a third person.”

The article goes on to say that “Most (Korean adoptees) were placed with white parents in the United States and Europe during the 1970s and ’80s. South Korea was then ruled by a succession of military dictatorships, which were focused on economic growth and saw adoptions as a tool to reduce the number of mouths to feed, erase the “social problem” of unwed mothers and deepen ties with the democratic West.”

The description of South Korea could apply to the sending countries as well, of course. It will be interesting to see if, as is possible, South Korean adoptees bring legal action against their agencies or against the government as a result of the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee.

The Korean Court’s Ruling On the Government Role in Adoptee’s Lawsuit

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When the South Korean court ruled this week on the case of adoptee Adam Crapser’s lawsuit, they agreed with some of the allegations against Holt Children’s Services, the adoption agency. The court did not agree with any of the allegations against the government of the Republic of Korea,

According to Lee Kyung-eun (Ph.D. in law), director of Human Rights Beyond Borders, in a March 2022 Korean Times article, these were the allegations about illegal acts by the Korean government:

  • Negligence of its duty to protect its national in the process of inter-country adoption.
  • Unconstitutional use of proxy adoptions, a practice stipulated in the Adoption Special Procedure Act.
  • Negligence of its duty to monitor and audit the practices of adoption agencies.
  • Violation of its obligation to perform due diligence in the process of allowing children to leave the country to be adopted transnationally.
  • Failure to monitor and verify the citizenship acquisition of inter-country adoptees, as prescribed by law.
  • Negligence of its obligation to fulfill post-adoption monitoring of the plaintiff’s adoption.
  • Failure to uphold the international norms that seek to prevent financial gain by allowing the inclusion of such unethical practices in the implementation ordinance of the Special Adoption Procedure Act. 

The court did not hold the Korean government liable any of the allegations in the case of Adam Crapser’s adoption.

Some detailed information about the court decision is available on the Facebook page of Banet, a group for Korean adoptees searching for relatives.

A few points from Banet’s analysis of the court decision:

Because Korea has not ratified The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, it cannot be held responsible for failing to abide by it.

The Korean government had responsibility only for making the procedures possible for adoption. It gave responsibility and authority for supervising the adoption process to the adoption agencies iIn this case, Holt Children’s Services).

The Korean government has no liability as to where the adoptee was placed and with whom. Those decisions were handled by the adoption agency.

While the plaintiff alleged that adoption by proxy is illegal, the court said the Korean Congress made adoption laws, and allowed adoption by proxy.

While the government may not have known about illegal activities or may not have brought disciplinary action against adoption agencies, the government nonetheless did not breach its duty to supervise the agencies.

The government accepted the decision of the state of Michigan regarding the suitability of Crapser’s first adoptive parents.

I am not a lawyer. Nor am I an expert on any of this, and certainly not about Korean adoption law in the late ’70’s, when Adam Crapser was adopted. This legal decision by the South Korean court will, no doubt, be scrutinized by adoptees, adoption agencies, and government agencies responsible for intercountry adoptions.

This is, as far as I know, the first significant decision regarding a Korean adoptee placed in the United States. Adoptions from South Korea began in the 1950’s, and Korean adoptees are the largest group of international adoptees (estimates range from 150,000 to 200,000 adoptees, mostly placed in the US). Some folks see this lawsuit as an important step in the right direction; others think it will be inconsequential. Perhaps the Korean government is relieved; perhaps adoption agencies and other governments are thinking about what lies ahead for them.

Judgement on Adam Crapser’s Suit Against Holt and South Korea Could Be Announced Tuesday

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On Tuesday May 16, a South Korean court is expected to rule on adoptee Adam Crapser’s suit against the adoption agency Holt International and the government of the Republic of Korea.

From my 2022 blog post Adam Crapser vs. Republic of Korea and Holt International: “Obvious international human rights violations:

“In January 2019, Korean adoptee Adam Crapser filed a petition against the Korean government and Holt Children’s Services Inc. for allegedly violating his rights during his adoption process. ‘Although the plaintiff’s story garnered worldwide media attention, his lawsuit represents a historic legal first..this petition is the first and only attempt by an inter-country adoptee to hold the Korean government accountable for failing to uphold its duty in such an adoption.'” 

Lee Kyeung-eun, the director of Human Rights Beyond Borders), wrote in The Korea Times article “Adam Crapser vs. The Republic of Korea,” that “This petition filed by Shin Song-hyuk (better known as Adam Crapser) is the first and only attempt by an inter-country adoptee to hold the Korean government accountable for failing to uphold its duty in such an adoption.”

Kyeung-eun cites several “Alleged illegal acts of Republic of Korea” as well as “Alleged illegal acts of Holt Children’s Services Inc,” and argues that “The plaintiff (Crapser) has suffered the following rights violations: the right to know and preserve his true identity due to the fraudulent falsification of his orphan registration (a birth registration reserved for children without their parents’ information); damages from physical, mental and emotional abuse inflicted in the course of the adoption, the dissolution of the adoption and the consequential multiple moves to other homes and the effects of those events; violation of the right to acquire and have the nationality of his adoptive country; violation of personality rights and the right to pursue happiness due to deportation.”

After being brought to the United States for adoption at 3 years old, Crapser was horribly abused and abandoned by two adoptive families. He got into legal trouble, and faced deportation because he could not prove his US citizenship.

Ultimately Adam was deported by the Unites States back to South Korea in 2016, leaving behind a wife and 3 daughters. He is not the only deported international adoptee: According to the New York Times, “Deportation a Death Sentence to Adoptees After a Lifetime in the United States.”

I wrote about Adam’s deportation for Slate. I’ve been writing about the tragedy of adoptee deportation for years. While Crapser is not the only internationally adopted deportee, he is the first to sue both his adoption agency and the government of his country of origin. Many governments and adoption agencies are likely watching this case closely.

I will post more when we hear about the court’s decision. May there be justice for adoptees.

South Korea Agrees to Investigate International Adoptions: This is Big.

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In an unprecedented move, one that other governments will hopefully look into, South Korea has agreed to investigate fraud and corruption in international adoptions from South Korea. According to NPR, South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has said “it decided to investigate 34 cases,… which could possibly develop into the country’s most far-reaching inquiry into foreign adoptions yet.”

Further, “Nearly 400 South Koreans adopted as children by families in the West have requested South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigate their adoptions…as Seoul faces growing pressure to reckon with a child export frenzy driven by dictatorships that ruled the country until the 1980s.”

The Danish Korean Rights Group has been the leader in this effort, via Korean adoptee and attorney Peter Møller. The DKRG has filed hundreds of applications requesting an investigation, from adoptees raised in Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and the US. The adoptees, per The Guardian, “say they were wrongfully removed from their families through falsified documents and corrupt practices.”

The investigation, according to Spectrum News, is rooted in “a broad range of grievances emphasizing how scores of children were carelessly or unnecessarily removed from their families amid loose government monitoring and a lack of due diligence. 

Perhaps more crucially, the country’s special laws aimed at promoting adoptions practically allowed profit-driven agencies to manipulate records and bypass proper child relinquishment. 

Most of the South Korean adoptees sent abroad were registered by agencies as legal orphans found abandoned on the streets, although they frequently had relatives who could be easily identified and found. This made the children more easily adoptable as agencies raced to send more kids to the West at faster speeds. 

‘None of us are orphans,’ said Peter Møller, attorney and co-head of the Danish Korean Rights Group, as he described the group’s members who filed the application. 

“(In) a lot of papers, the Korean state at the time have stamped papers that say people were found on the streets. If you do a little bit of math, that would mean that from the 1970s and 1980s Seoul would be flooded with baskets with children lying around in the streets. … Basements will be filled with lost child reports at police stations.

Some of the adoptees say they discovered that the agencies had switched their identities to replace other children who died or got too sick to travel to Danish parents, which made it highly difficult or often impossible to trace their roots. 

The adoptees called for the commission to broadly investigate the alleged wrongdoings surrounding their adoptions, including how agencies potentially falsified records, manipulated children’s backgrounds and origins, and proceeded with adoptions without the proper consent of birth parents. They want the commission to establish whether the government should be held accountable for failing to monitor the agencies and confirm whether the uptick in adoptions was fueled by increasingly larger payments and donations from adoptive parents, which apparently motivated agencies to create their own supply. 

The adoptees also called for the commission to push Holt Children’s Services and the Korea Social Service — the two agencies that sent kids to Denmark — into providing full access to the entirety of their adoption documents and background information. They also say all those records should be transferred to government authorities handling post-adoption services to prevent the information from being destroyed or manipulated.”

It is extraordinary and highly significant that South Korea has agreed to this investigation of fraud and duplicity. Will other sending countries follow this important example and do the same?

Hundreds of Korean Adoptees Petition for an Investigation Into Their Adoptions

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The Danish Korean Rights Group (DKRG), an adoptee-centered organization based in Denmark, has petitioned the government of South Korea to investigate adoptions for fraud, and to ensure that agencies do not destroy adoptees’ documents.

Korean adoptee Peter Møller of the DKRG spoke recently in Seoul. This is an excerpt.

“Today I have handed in 232 new application to the (Truth and Reconciliation) Commission. 163 from Denmark and 69 from countries other than Denmark, from adoptees placed around the world, including the USA, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium…

We add to this declarations of support from adoptees placed by adoption agencies other than Holt and KSS, and adoptive parents…

I have received many inquiries from all over the world, and most adoptees are very worried…adoptees are afraid that the adoption agencies will destroy and dispose of our original documents to prevent the truth about adoption from South Korea from being known.

DKRG has had reasonable grounds to suspect that falsification of adoptees’ documents has occurred to enable overseas adoption…An example:

The adoptee Ms. Stephens from the US writes to me: ‘I was told by the social worker, Mrs. Kim (KSS), that most likely the name provided as my mother’s was a false name, probably changed by a KSS employee. In making me an “orphan,” KSS erased my mother’s identity from my records, making it impossible for me to find her. It is my belief that my mother wants me to find her as she wrote letters to my father and sent him photos of me. My father died before I could meet him.’

I am standing here with a letter from one of the adoption agencies, and this letter proves that this is precisely what happened. Let me read it out loud to you. This is a letter to an adopted person:

‘First of all, I would like to apologize for the mistake in your adoption file written in English. It says you were transferred from Namkwang Children’s Home in Pusan to KSS for international adoption. In fact, it was made up just for adoption procedure, and now I would like to share your adoption background as written in the original paper,’ quote Ms. Lee, KSS…

DKRG has decided to write a letter to the President of Korea, in which we urgently request the Korean government and authorities to protect the adoptees’ original documents and protect the adoptees from reprisals.”

Møller’s full statement is here.

Adam Crapser vs. Republic of Korea and Holt International: “Obvious international human rights violations”

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A Korean human rights advocate has published an article claiming multiple ways that both the Korean government and Holt International allegedly violated the human rights of a Korean adoptee, including “flagrant infringements,” “unlawful acts” of negligence, and more.

Lee Kyeung-eun, the director of Human Rights Beyond Borders), has written an article published today in The Korea Times about Korean adoptee Adam Crapser’s January 2019 petition against the Korean government and Holt Children’s Services Inc. for allegedly violating his rights during his adoption process. “Although the plaintiff’s story garnered worldwide media attention, his lawsuit represents a historic legal first..this petition is the first and only attempt by an inter-country adoptee to hold the Korean government accountable for failing to uphold its duty in such an adoption.” 

The article calls on more Koreans and more adoptees to be aware of the case: “the claims of this case are not isolated to the plaintiff (Adam Crapser). On the contrary, they represent wider harms perpetrated against most Korean adoptees. Hence, more people ― especially adoptees ― should know more about this case.”

Beyond that, the article then examines the claims against the Korean government and Holt Children’s Services Inc., and their lack of accountability,”  and does so in strong, provocative terms.

This petition filed by Shin Song-hyuk (better known as Adam Crapser) is the first and only attempt by an inter-country adoptee to hold the Korean government accountable for failing to uphold its duty in such an adoption. Courtesy of Lee Kyung-eun
This petition filed by Shin Song-hyuk (better known as Adam Crapser) is the first and only attempt by an inter-country adoptee to hold the Korean government accountable for failing to uphold its duty in such an adoption. Courtesy of Lee Kyung-eun

“The plaintiff has suffered the following rights violations: the right to know and preserve his true identity due to the fraudulent falsification of his orphan registration (a birth registration reserved for children without their parents’ information); damages from physical, mental and emotional abuse inflicted in the course of the adoption, the dissolution of the adoption and the consequential multiple moves to other homes and the effects of those events; violation of the right to acquire and have the nationality of his adoptive country; violation of personality rights and the right to pursue happiness due to deportation.

The plaintiff’s rights have been violated by a number of unlawful acts committed through the cooperative efforts of the government of the Republic of Korea and Holt Children’s Services Inc. The charges against the defendants are as follows:

Alleged illegal acts of Republic of Korea:

Negligence of its duty to protect its national in the process of inter-country adoption.

Unconstitutional use of proxy adoptions, a practice stipulated in the Adoption Special Procedure Act.

Negligence of its duty to monitor and audit the practices of adoption agencies.

Violation of its obligation to perform due diligence in the process of allowing children to leave the country to be adopted transnationally. The government had a duty to execute this crucial step by ensuring that a relevant authority would verify the legitimacy of the adoption agencies’ procedures. However, it failed to do so, thereby being in severe dereliction of duty. 

Failure to monitor and verify the citizenship acquisition of inter-country adoptees, as prescribed by law.

Negligence of its obligation to fulfill post-adoption monitoring of the plaintiff’s adoption.

Failure to uphold the international norms that seek to prevent financial gain by allowing the inclusion of such unethical practices in the implementation ordinance of the Special Adoption Procedure Act. 

Alleged illegal acts of Holt Children’s Services Inc.:

Holt is among the original four accredited adoption agencies authorized by the government to engage exclusively in inter-country adoptions from Korea for foreign adoptive parents. The original intent of granting such exclusive power should have been to secure the protection and welfare of children adopted abroad. However, rather than fulfilling this aim, it abused its power and engaged in gross child rights violations to reap financial benefits from its adoption business. 

In the case of the plaintiff, despite knowing about the existence of the mother and father, Holt proceeded to provide fraudulent information to the registry office to register the plaintiff as an abandoned orphan.

The allegations are: negligence in the conduct of its duty to serve as a guardian and protect the children under its care; illegally relinquishing and transferring guardianship to the agencies of the receiving countries; failure to execute its obligations to provide support in the acquisition of citizenship for adoptees and to verify the acquisition in accordance with the relevant laws of the receiving countries.

These claims are obvious international human rights violations that expose the shortcomings of the Korean government to uphold international standards and safeguards to protect the rights of children in adoption. However, as the lawsuit was filed with the Korean Civil Court, the petition remains limited to the national legal protections available at the time of the wrongdoing. Even under these circumstances, the defendants’ flagrant infringements of the plaintiff’s rights constitute serious transgressions.”

Read the entire article here. This is apparently the first in a series of articles about the amicus brief submitted to the court as expert testimony. The case is still pending in court.

As this article suggests, the case has enormous potential ramifications for adoptees around the globe.

The Complexity of Visiting Korea, By a Korean Adoptee: NAAM

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This is day 28 of National Adoption Awareness Month, so this is my daily post to amplify the voices of adoptees..

I am fascinated by other languages, and especially by the difficult-to-translate meanings of some words. For example, I love the word “fernweh,” German for “farsickness,” or a longing for place you’ve never been to and can never go to. Another favorite is “hiraeth,” a Welsh word that roughly translates to a longing for a place that was never yours, a place to which you can’t return. Both have some relevance to adoption.

Leslie Maes, a Korean adoptee raised in Belgium, has written an article published in The Korea Times about “han” and “jeong” for adoptees. Maes notes that “han” is a Korean word “that could be described as an ‘internalized feeling of deep sorrow, grief, regret and anger.'”  “Jeong,” he writes, “can be described as ‘a feeling of loyalty and of strong emotional connection to people and places.’ ” 

Maes would like to see the Korean adoptee community take on the embodiment of ‘jeong.’ “This emotion is the true gift we get from adoption, and one of the things I am really grateful for.

When looking at the difficult lives some adoptees have had, and how poor adoptee support systems are, it is comforting and reassuring to see how supportive and organized Korean adoptees are, globally. Sure there’s a lot of politics going on within groups and between community leaders, as in any kind of community.

But with a difficult start in life, often no support from Korea, nor from the receiving countries, adoptees are doing a great job in creating and connecting. Most adoptees are doing this work for free and in their free time.”

I’ve known many international and transracial adoptees who do not feel “Korean enough,” or Chinese enough,” or “Black enough,” or “Colombian enough.” One of the frequent losses in international adoption is the loss of one’s original language. Some adoptees of course learn (or re-learn) their original languages; perhaps others incorporate the bits of language that bring comfort to them. Maybe it’s a way of filling in missing pieces.

This article, printed in The Korea Times, is, according to an Editor’s Note, “the 24th in a series about Koreans adopted abroad. Apparently, many Koreans never expected that the children it had sent away via adoption would return as adults with questions demanding to be answered. However, thousands of adoptees visit Korea each year. Once they rediscover this country, it becomes a turning point in their lives. We should embrace the dialogue with adoptees to discover the path to recovering our collective humanity. ― ED.“

Intercountry adoption in many ways began with Korean adoptees after the Korean War, and they are the largest group of intercountry adoptees to the U.S., if not globally. I am not aware of any other “sending” country that has offered to promote the viewpoint of adoptees this way. Wouldn’t it be great if other countries followed this example, and amplified, or at least encouraged, the voices of adult adoptees?

I Am Adoptee: NAAM

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This is day 16 of National Adoption Awareness Month, so this is my daily post to amplify the voices of adoptees.

“A community built around mental health and wellness, by adoptees, for adoptees”: that is the focus of the nonprofit IAMAdoptee. Co-founder Joy Lieberthal Rho, LCSW, was adopted from South Korea when she almost six years old. She has worked in adoption for many years, including in private practice with intercountry adoptees and their families. That work was the basis for founding IAMAdoptee, which curates a wealth of mental health resources, directed primarily to internationally adopted people.

The wellness resources include suggestions for how to deal with Covid-19 isolation, lists of adoptee-led groups around the world, and articles and blog posts about a range of adoptee-related subjects. There is a checklist and overview for adoptees considering searching for birth family, with information about South Korea, China, Colombia, Guatemala, India, and Paraguay. In “Community,” you can find information about culture camps and related organizations, about citizenship, about adoptee podcasts, and about adoptee-focused conferences.

Currently, IAMAdoptee is partnering with SideXSide, “a large scale documentary and oral history project, telling the story of 65+ years of inter-country adoption out of South Korea and 100 individuals, born in Korea, 1944–1995.” (I wrote about SideXSide here.) IAMAdoptee is hosting a series of Reflections on the Adoptee Journey, about the topics in SideXSide’s videos, such as Memory, Birth Family Reunion, and Searching for Answers. Each topic features a video from the SideXSide project, and then a reflection/conversation with an “esteemed lineup of intercountry adoptee clinical therapists,” facilitated by Joy Lieberthal Rho.

IAMAdoptee is actively adding mental health and wellness resources to their site. The Facebook page has additional information and resources. One recent post, for example, was about adult adoptees from Greece seeking to reinstate their citizenship.

The vision of IAMAdoptee is “an act of service to the adoptee community, a place for an intercountry adopted person to connect with others.” An excellent way to honor adoptees during National Adoption Awareness Month (November) is to follow their Facebook pages and websites, and to donate to ensure they can keep their good work going.