All language subtitles for Frontline.S42E10.South.Koreas.Adoption.Reckoning.1080p.WEB.h264-BAE_untitled_track2_[eng]

No other country in the world
has sent its children abroad for

adoptions for a longer time than
Korea.

NARRATOR: In collaboration
with the Associated Press,

an investigation into South
Korea’s Foreign Adoptions.

How did this program that
started as a contained program

grow dramatically over time to
become this industry?

The top level of policy
makers they were not really

interested about the specific
rules and regulations

to protect the rights of the
child.

NARRATOR: Accounts of
falsified

records and faked
identities.

They've documented these
children as abandoned that

ensured the child was adoptable
in the United States.

It would be wonderful if
every child born in Korea

could stay with their biological
family.

But that's not the reality.

What do you do when you find
out your origin story is marked

with grievous injustice?

NARRATOR: Now on FRONTLINE,

South Korea’s Adoption
Reckoning.

Adoptions could be the issue
that South Korea finds most

difficult to address.

TONG-HYUNG KIM
(speaking Korean):

CHOI YOUNG-JA:

KIM:

CHOI:

♪ ♪

(breath trembling)

(sniffles)

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

I was adopted into France
in 1982.

I was adopted...
I was adopted...

I was adopted...
ALL: ...to Sweden...

...in 1982.

1974.

1988.

KIM: There are about
200,000 people

around the world who were
adopted out of South Korea.

ALL: I was adopted
to the United States.

KIM: It's believed to be the
largest population of adoptees

out of any country...

I was adopted in 1977

to Denmark...
...to Denmark in 1972.

KIM: ...an adoption program
that ran for decades.

♪ ♪

(on computer): What would you
tell to your birth mother

if she watched on TV right now?

My dream would be one day
to find you.

(voice trembling): Mom and
Dad, if you're watching this,

by any chance,
you could just meet with me?

KIM: For decades,
Korean television programs

have been featuring foreign
adoptees

in search of their
biological parents.

To my birth mother,
I hope to meet you someday.

I hope that someday,
I can learn more about you.

KIM: These reunions are
meant to be feel-good stories,

almost fairy tales.

But for some adoptees,

under the surface
is a much darker story.

♪ ♪

In the years since I began
investigating adoptions,

a growing number of adoptees

have come back to Korea
as adults

only to discover
that what they had been told

about their origins
was not true.

Everything
that I knew to be true

was suddenly erased.

KIM: There are accounts
of false identities...

It feels so careless,

like systemic disorganization.

KIM:
...fabricated documents...

They never checked whether
my parents existed or not.

KIM:
...and even stolen children.

You are feeding a very
dangerous and very dark system.

KIM: This has sparked
a national reckoning.

♪ ♪

A Truth and Reconciliation
Commission is now investigating

hundreds of cases of possible
human rights violations

associated with
past governments'

handling of foreign adoptions.

This was all a lie,

a lie made up
for adoption procedure.

KIM: Over the past
several years,

I've been reporting
on how South Korea

is dealing
with these allegations.

This is the one
where they banned

adoption agencies
from touring hospitals

and maternity homes for babies.

With my colleagues
at the Associated Press,

we submitted over 100
public record requests...

What's this outlining?
Like, father, mother...

KIM: ...and examined
thousands of pages of documents,

many that have never
been made public before.

♪ ♪

Along with "FRONTLINE,"

we've been speaking to more
than 80 Korean adoptees

from eight different
countries...

Korea had no place for
mixed-race children like me.

KIM: ...as well as people
who worked at adoption agencies.

(speaking Korean):

KIM: And we've
interviewed experts

and government officials

in South Korea and abroad.

There were a lot of children
brought to the States

who might not have been orphans.

(people talking in background)

KIM: This is the story
of how South Korean leaders

promoted a historic
adoption boom,

despite decades of warnings
about problems,

how Western governments
also turned a blind eye,

and the consequences that are
still playing out today.

♪ ♪

(rain falling)

Many of the adoptees I've met

are in the process
of trying to piece together

their origin stories,
including some

dating back to the early decades
of foreign adoptions.

My mother told me
when I was growing up

that I had been found abandoned.

(typewriter keys clacking)

My name is Alice Stephens.

I was adopted into a family
in Philadelphia.

♪ ♪

I was the youngest child

of four.

The three other children

were biological children

of my adoptive parents.

My parents gave me

a really good life--

everything they gave
their other children,

all the advantages,
all the love.

I was in my 30s
when my adoptive mother

suggested
that I find my birth mother.

To me, it just seemed
like an impossible mission.

The big game-changer was DNA,

um, for everybody.
(chuckles)

And I took the DNA test,

and it came back,

and there was
a very close match.

So I contacted the woman.

It turned out to be
my father's cousin.

She very quickly figured out
who, who my father was.

She sent me
his obituary, photos.

The family gave me
lots of information.

And then this one photo

of my mother dressed up
in a hanbok

and my father
in his U.S. military outfit.

It took me a long time
to understand

just what she did here in Korea,

that she, that she was
a military prostitute.

He kept her in a home
that was quite near the base.

They were in a
common-law marriage.

His family told me
that he loved her.

He left Korea when my mother
was six months pregnant.

So he knew that
she was gonna have his baby.

Since my father wasn't Korean,
I would not have been recognized

by Korean society as a Korean.

She knew that life here
would not have

been good for me,
and so, she gave me up.

♪ ♪

One of the reasons
that Korean adoption

is important to understand

is that it represents

the first large-scale
adoption program in the world.

KIM: Eleana Kim
is a leading scholar

on South Korean adoptions
and their legacy.

Korea was the top sending
country for so long

and really laid the groundwork

for transnational adoptions
to come.

KIM: No other country
in the world

has sent its children abroad
for adoptions

for a longer time than Korea.

(explosion pounds)

Korean adoptions really begin

in the aftermath
of the Korean War.

♪ ♪

By the end of that conflict,

there were thousands of children

who had been separated
from their families

or had been orphaned.

There were also
mixed-race children

who had been fathered
by U.S. soldiers

and born to Korean women.

(people talking in background)

KIM: Korea's first president,
Syngman Rhee,

saw the mixed-race children

as a threat
to his rebuilding efforts,

which was focused on restoring
an old idea of Korea

based on ethnical homogeneity.

There was a lot of emphasis on

maintaining
the pure Korean bloodline.

In 1954,
he issued instructions

making adoptions easier.

He said,
"If a foreigner wishes

"to adopt a mixed-race orphan,

take the necessary measures."

And certainly on the
U.S. side, there was also

a lot of interest in rescuing
those mixed-race children.

KIM: Pictures
of mixed-race children

began appearing in publications
in the United States,

and adoptions began
at a small scale.

But they really took off

when an evangelical missionary
named Harry Holt

came onto the scene.

♪ ♪

Harry Holt
went to South Korea

to find children
that he believed

God wanted him to save.

In Portland, Oregon,

a welcoming committee
of foster parents...

Cameras were waiting

at the bottom of the steps

when the Holt children arrived,

and it was broadcast
all over the nation.

Many of these orphans
are ours.

There's at least 1,000,
maybe 1,500

Black and white American orphans
with American fathers.

I'd like to say to
the American people, that is,

open your hearts
to these little ones

and help to bring them home,
where they belong.

And that was the point
at which the Holts

decided to start
the Holt adoption program.

♪ ♪

KIM: Together with
Syngman Rhee's government,

the Holt adoption program
pioneered a method called

proxy adoption,
which allowed Americans

to adopt a child in Korea

without actually
coming to the country

by having Holt
or another local agency

acting as their proxy.

Here is Harry Holt--
he is flying

89 of the tots to America...

Holt brought over
planeloads of children.

He would charter airplanes.

His third trip from Korea
brings the total to 76.

So this is how you see

Holt's program grow
over the years.

♪ ♪

(people talking in background)

The Reagan Library might have
records related to adoption.

He met with
the Korean president.

KIM: Yeah, that's possible.

(voiceover): My A.P. colleague
Claire Galofaro and I

have been focusing our reporting

on explaining how
South Korea's government,

Korean adoption agencies,
and Western governments

worked together to ship

huge numbers of Korean children
to the West for decades.

The question we asked was,

how did this program
that started as

a really small
and contained program

grow dramatically over time
to become this industry?

♪ ♪

Before South Korea,

there was no systemic way

for an American family
to adopt a child from abroad.

But in 1961, Congress
passed a law that defined

what an orphan eligible
for adoption meant.

They defined an orphan
as a person

who had lost one
or both parents to death,

disappearance,

or abandonment.

That language became important,

because what our reporting
has found is that

the adoption agencies relied
on the word abandoned,

because that made
processing adoptions

much quicker, much easier.

And they could get kids
out of Korea

and to Western countries faster

if they listed them
as abandoned.

KIM: Korea didn't have--
and still doesn't have--

an automatic
birth registration system.

So what the Korean
adoption system did

was register these children
with a unique document

called orphan ho juk,
or an orphan certificate.

This document would describe

that the child's parents
were unknown, and therefore

classifying them
as abandoned orphans.

It didn't matter
if the child was,

you know, really left
on a doorstep

or actually had parents
who agreed

to the adoption of the child.

They just documented
these children as abandoned.

That ensured
that the child was adoptable

in the United States
and other Western nations.

♪ ♪

When you live your whole life

believing that you were
abandoned by unknown parents,

do you even try
to find your roots?

Many adoptees I've spoken to

said they never really wanted
to find their parents,

because they didn't really think
there was anything to find.

This was part of the problem
in Choi Young-ja's search

for so many years.

Her son had gone missing
in 1975,

after running outside to play
with neighborhood kids.

She told me
she looked everywhere for him,

visiting police stations
and orphanages.

CHOI (speaking Korean):

KIM:

CHOI:

KIM:
A few years ago,

her search took on
a new urgency.

CHOI:

KIM: She submitted
her DNA to a database

that helps reunite families.

CHOI:

(on computer):
But everything we were told,

which I believed
when I was a kid,

was actually a lie.

And being adopted,
you're asked a lot about...

KIM: When I first
started developing

a reporting interest
in adoption, I...

Like most Koreans,
I thought of it

as a humanitarian response
rooted in the Korean War

that was helping orphans
find families.

And I thought

there has to be
a deeper explanation

than the explanations
that the Koreans have shared

for a long time.

Is this really
a war relief effort?

♪ ♪

By the 1960s,
South Korea's adoption program,

which had primarily focused
on mixed-race children,

shifted to children
who were fully Korean.

That's really the moment
when adoptions

should probably
have been reconsidered,

but they just continued.

And so, there was essentially,
if you want to talk about it

in terms of supply and demand,
there was a new supply.

KIM: This was happening

under the dictatorship
of President Park Chung-hee,

who made it his mission

to dig South Korea
out of poverty

and create
a formidable military force

to counter threats
by North Korea.

South Korea is spending
40% of its budget

on national defense,

and two percent
on social welfare.

KIM:
Over the next decade,

they began sending
thousands of children

overseas in adoptions
every year.

By sending
needy children overseas,

it allowed them
to reduce the annual costs

of supporting orphanages

and keep spending
on national defense.

And by the mid-1970s,

Park's government passed a law

that removed judicial oversight
over adoptions,

which made the foreign adoptions
of Korean children even easier.

Korea's Ministry of Health
and Welfare,

which oversees adoption policy,

wouldn't go on camera,

but they did give us
written answers

to questions we submitted.

They attributed
the increase in adoptions

starting in the 1970s
to a reduction in foreign aid

that was crucial
to their child welfare budget.

They also attributed it
to an increase

in child abandonment
in that era.

But I talked to Kyung-eun Lee,

a former
Health Ministry official

who oversaw adoption policies
starting in 2010.

She questions
whether there were really

so many abandoned children
in need of adoption.

This number of
abandonment of a child,

it does not really
reflect the reality.

KIM:
She's been instrumental

in passing adoption reform
in South Korea.

Why was the government so eager

to facilitate foreign adoptions?

From my understanding,

the government did not really
care about the details.

The top level of policymakers
were not really

interested about the specific
rules and regulations

to protect
the rights of the child,

the safety of the child,
the need of the children.

What they focus was

the welfare need of the, uh,
national budget.

The orphanage received
the government subsidies.

If the number of, uh, children
in orphanage increased,

the welfare cost of government
would increase.

So if you want to decrease
that welfare burden,

you just decrease the number
of children in orphanage,

and orphanages send those
children to adoption agencies.

KIM: At the time,
many poor families

were using orphanages to
temporarily care for their kids.

She said once children
left the orphanages,

the government pretty much
abdicated oversight.

This system is

totally in, under the power
of private agencies,

and a fate of a human being
is decided by a private entity.

How can you expect
an appropriate decision

to fulfill the interest,
the best interest of a child?

♪ ♪

(people talking in background)

KIM: The majority of adoptees
I've spoken to

left South Korea
when they were very young

and have believed the origin
story that they were told.

(speaking Korean):

KIM: But Yoo-ree Kim's case
was different.

She was 11 when she was
adopted to France

and always knew
that she wasn't an orphan.

Her story caused a stir
in Korea

when she went on television in
2022.

(speaking French):

KIM: Her mother was poor

and had placed Yoo-ree
and her brother in an orphanage

until she could get back
on her feet.

(both greeting in Korean)

KIM: Her mother
stayed in touch,

sending letters and money

over the two years
they were there.

I was waiting for my mother
to come and pick us up.

I did not understand

why Korea was, uh,

taking me away from,
uh, my motherland.

KIM: Did you demand
that orphanage worker just

contact your father,
contact your mother,

you know, contact any relative
you had?

Yes, I did.

But she refused.

I told her that my mother was
unable to do such a thing.

She said it was done,

and that my mother
will never come back.

KIM: Yoo-ree and her brother
were adopted by a couple

who lived in a small town
in Southern France.

The sexual abuses started

on the second day,

as soon as we arrived
in the family house.

KIM:
From your adoptive father?

Yeah, from my adoptive
father.

It was almost daily,

at the beginning.

And I was hoping that someone

would show up to investigate.

Then I will be able
to explain what's happening,

and I will be able
to go back to Korea.

But they never came.

KIM: Yoo-ree eventually
ran away from home

and filed a complaint,

but the case was dismissed
by a judge

due to insufficient evidence.

Her adoptive parents
and her brother

denied the abuse ever happened.

In a letter to Yoo-ree,

her adoptive father called it
a "false accusation".

He passed away in 2022.

Yoo-ree's adoption paperwork had
multiple conflicting

stories about how she became an
orphan.

And she spent years thinking
that her parents

had abandoned her.

Until she went to South Korea.

You came to Korea to visit them.
Uh-huh.

KIM: How did that go?

Uh...

It went well.

My mother insisted
I see my father,

and I asked to both of them,

why did they abandon me,

and why did they sign
the paper for the adoption?

And both of them denied

being involved
with the adoption.

KIM: When did you realize

that your parents
were telling you the truth,

that they never
relinquished you?

I...

It took me years before

being able to find the,

all the adoption paperwork.

And I went to the city hall

and requested
the family registry.

I asked to the employee
from the city hall,

"What does this paper
concretely mean?",

and he told me
that I was a Korean citizen

who has been living
her entire life in Korea.

KIM: So based on
just looking at this paper,

it seems as if you and your
brother just never left.

No, and we were

never adopted.
KIM: Kept being...

So this was when you realized
that, you know, your parents

never gave consent.
Yeah.

KIM: I spoke to Yoo-ree's
mother, and she told me

she had previously
worked at the orphanage

and assumed her children
would be cared for there,

not sent away.

Yoo-ree reached out to
the Health Ministry for answers

about how her adoption
could have gone through.

They sent me a letter
with a vague apology,

and they said
they will monitor adoption

better for the future.

KIM: So it says,

it sympathizes with the pain
that you went through, and...

No, I don't care
about their sympathy.

KIM: Yeah, it doesn't
acknowledge...

No.

KIM: ...any responsibility
of what went through

in the '80s.
No, no.

I was separated for 40 years

from my mom and dad,

and I have no idea what's, uh,

like having a family.

It's an

immense sense of loss.

♪ ♪

KIM: Yoo-ree is now seeking
accountability,

both in South Korea and France.

Last year, she asked
the French authorities

to investigate her adoption,

and she's submitted her case

to South Korea's Truth
and Reconciliation Commission.

More than 350 people have
also filed claims,

and while it's impossible
to know

just how many problems
there were over the years,

that's thought to be just a
fraction of the overall number.

♪ ♪

The commission is
supposed to release

its full findings next year.

But they agreed to talk to me

about what
they've learned so far.

PARK GEON-TAE
(speaking Korean):

KIM:

PARK HYEJIN:

KIM:

PARK HYEJIN:

♪ ♪

I was adopted through
the Holt adoption agency.

Social Welfare Society.

It was KSS.

KIM: Four agencies
inside South Korea

handle most of the adoptions in
the years after the Korean War.

KSS.

Social Welfare Society.

Eastern.
Holt International.

KIM: They always publicly
pointed to the benefits

of adoptions as a way of saving
vulnerable children.

Holt Children Services.

From Holt International.

Holt Children's Services.

KIM: Holt was the largest,

handling about half
of all the adoptions.

♪ ♪

In 1977, Holt split in two:

Holt Korea, which processed
the adoptions of children

leaving South Korea;

and Holt International,

which paired adoptees
with families in the West.

Holt International was
the only adoption agency

that would agree
to an on-camera interview.

This is the historical wall
that tells the story of Holt.

See, these are all the kids as
they were coming off the plane.

KIM: At Holt's headquarters
in Oregon,

Claire and I met Susan
Soonkeum Cox.

She's a longtime executive and
spokesperson for the agency,

and is now retired.

So Mrs. Holt
took lots of pictures.

When I first came
to work at Holt,

Mrs. Holt asked me if I would
like to see her scrapbooks.

And, of course, I said yes.
It was...

Did you find yourself
in any of them?

Yes, I did.

KIM:
She joined Holt in the 1970s,

two decades after becoming
the 167th South Korean

to be adopted
through the agency.

Is '56 your year, too?
Mm-hmm.

KIM: She has been
a vocal defender of Holt,

and says that most adoptions
have gone well over the years.

That's me.
Oh, wow.

Will you tell us how you came
to work for Holt?

Mm-hmm.
To do this as your career?

Well, it certainly
wasn't ever a plan that I had.

The board decided
to put an adoptee

on the board of directors.

And so,
I was that first adoptee.

I was the only one
for many, many years

that was involved
in adoption work.

And, um,

in 1983, I went from being
a member of the board

to a member of the staff.

KIM: You were adopted

in the aftermath
of a very devastating war.

Right.
KIM: I mean, the '70s,

Korea was very far off
economically,

but at the same time...
Mm-hmm.

KIM: ...Korea was rising

as an industrial nation in Asia.
Right, right.

KIM: So did it feel strange
that your birth nation

is, you know, continuing
to rely on adoptions

because they couldn't find

a social welfare solution
for those children?

But I,
that wasn't what I saw.

What I saw were the kids.

What I saw
were the consequences.

And there was still a huge
effect of war in the '70s.

The whole concept of the war
seemed pretty,

didn't seem
all that far away, still.

You know, some people
have said to us

that that period of time,
like, when it went from being

people who were mixed-race
to fully Korean children,

that that's when we maybe
should have taken a look

at whether continuing
to send children abroad

in huge numbers for adoption
was really the best solution.

Did you question whether

continuing adoptions
at a large scale

of fully Korean children
was really the best thing?

(inhales)

Well, I think
philosophically you can say,

um,

is that the best thing
for children?

It would be wonderful
if every child

born in Korea
and every other country

could stay with
their biological family

and, um, live a happy,
you know, fulfilling life.

But that's not the reality--
I mean, it just simply isn't.

And I think to not accept that,

um, fails to address what is
important for, for children.

♪ ♪

Look how cute.

(chuckles)
Look at him.

Look at her.

For many couples looking

for an American baby
or a young child,

to adopt is a long, arduous,

and, sadly,
often successful ordeal.

♪ ♪

KIM: By the '70s and '80s,

demand for adoptive children

in Western countries
had skyrocketed.

♪ ♪

American families were
really desperate for children.

The, uh, there was access
to birth control and abortion

like there had never been
before.

The number of domestically
available children

for adoption had plummeted.

Waiting lists
were extremely long,

um, sometimes years.

Um, and so families were
really eager

to adopt from abroad.

The coincidence of Western
demand and Eastern supply

has now led
to 23 Third-World countries

allowing their babies to be sent

to Europe and America
for adoption.

Most of the
5,000 foreign children

adopted in the U.S. last year

came from Korea,
one of the few countries

that's made such adoptions easy.

I think Western demand

is one of the most fundamental
pieces of this,

because if there had not been

this incredible demand
for babies in the West,

a lot of these kids
would've never left Korea,

because they would've had
nowhere to go.

More than half of
the 200,000 adoptees from Korea

ended up in the United States.

♪ ♪

There were essentially
two governments with the power

to rein this in
at the beginning,

and that was
the South Korean government

and the United States
government.

♪ ♪

KIM: We've been asking
the U.S. State Department

for details of their involvement
in adoptions over the years.

They said records
are very scarce,

but our questions prompted them

to begin looking more closely
at adoptions.

They declined to talk on camera,

but we spoke to former
ambassador Susan Jacobs,

who was the State Department's

first special adviser
for Children's Issues

and who has worked
on the subject for years.

She acknowledged there were
problems

since the beginning of adoptions
out of South Korea,

partly because
of political pressure.

There was pressure to issue
the visas

to allow people to bring
children

to the United States to be
adopted.

The parents were pressuring
the Congress,

and these were
individual constituents.

And then the Congress
would call the State Department,

and you would get a call
from your assistant secretary.

There's congressional
testimony,

I think it was from 1977,

where officials talk about

how one officer flew
from Tokyo to Seoul

for one week every month.

In that week, they processed
all of the orphan petitions.

Mm-hmm.
And so that would be,

you know, hundreds of children

in that single week every month.

Do you think that is
a sufficient period of time

to be able to process

that kind of question,
"Is this an orphan?"

Absolutely not.

There couldn't have been
any rigor

in that process whatsoever.

They were probably
filling out...

I mean, I hate to say this--

they were doing
what they were told to do.

They were signing off
on these forms

and letting the children go on
their way to the United States.

There's this one I.S.S.
social worker,

wrote in her report about Korea

that she brought these concerns

to the attention of the people
at the embassy.

And what'd they say?

She said that they seemed
somewhat indifferent to them,

and that they thought that
the agencies should be left...

To do whatever they...
...to do their business.

Um...

I can imagine
that that is the exact truth.

You know, "Don't tell us
how to do our work."

The Korean government
was in favor of this,

and if they didn't care

if their children
were being adopted

into the United States
and other countries,

then why were we worried
about it?

You wish you could go back
in time

and change the way
we did things,

and that people would not
change the facts

of a, of a child's birth

or how they came into care
or anything else.

But those things did happen.

I do think
that the country of origin

has the first responsibility

to raise alarms about what's
happening to its children.

(people talking in background)

♪ ♪

KIM:
When Choi Young-ja discovered

that her son had been
adopted abroad,

he sent her
his adoption paperwork.

♪ ♪

The documents said he'd
been found in a neighboring city

and given to Holt, where he was
registered as an orphan

and, five months later,
adopted to Norway.

♪ ♪

Holt had repeatedly told her
they didn't have her son.

But she went back to them
after seeing the paperwork.

CHOI (speaking Korean):

♪ ♪

KIM: Holt Korea did not
respond to questions

about Choi Young-ja's son.

Susan Cox of Holt International

also said she couldn't respond
to specific adoption cases.

But she questioned how
representative cases like these

were of
the overall adoption program.

Has there been some activity
that shouldn't have happened?

Probably, of course--

we're human,
and everybody is different.

There's good social workers,
there's bad social workers.

There's good employees,
bad employees.

And so, that's going to be,
that's the reality.

What I'm talking about
is the accusation

of systemic, deliberate
wrongdoing.

That I reject.

How have you felt about

that number of people
who've come forward

to say that they aren't happy
about their adoption,

or that they think
it was sort of tainted?

Has that been an upsetting
experience for you to watch?

It depends on-- it depends.

Anyone's experience is
their own experience.

I'm, I am not going
to disagree with that.

But I think, you know,

there's kind of different levels
of, of discontent.

And I think the...

What I really disagree with
are people who just outright say

that Holt is a terrible agency,

that everything is done
for profit.

Those things are disturbing
to me,

because it's not,
you know, that's not accurate.

Um, for people who say,

you know,
"My adoption wasn't good,"

"My parents," you know,
"were abusive," or whatever,

I give a lot more credibility
and, and concern to those,

because, you know,
that's more tangible.

That's more real.

♪ ♪

(phone vibrating)

KIM: Since I began reporting
on this story,

I've been trying to get
interviews

with adoption workers
in South Korea.

(speaking Korean):

(sighs, mutters)

(phone buttons clicking)

It's hard, because they're
legally forbidden

from speaking publicly
about their cases.

(speaking Korean):

But for years, I've been talking
to one former adoption worker.

(speaking Korean):

♪ ♪

She worked at one of the
four agencies in South Korea

in the early '80s.

(speaking Korean):

WOMAN:

KIM: We agreed to conceal
her identity

and not name the agency
she worked for.

♪ ♪

WOMAN (speaking Korean):

KIM:

WOMAN:

KIM:

WOMAN:

KIM:

WOMAN:

KIM: In addition
to the immense pressure,

she told me that she sometimes
came across records

that she believed had
false information in them.

WOMAN (speaking Korean):

KIM: She said
the policy at the time

required an abandoned child

to be held for six months
before adoption,

in case a relative turned up
to claim them.

WOMAN (speaking Korean):

KIM:

WOMAN:

(chuckling)

KIM and WOMAN:

WOMAN:

♪ ♪

KIM: While she didn't know
if this child

was eventually adopted abroad,

I've spoken with other adoptees

who said they were misled
by adoption papers

that distorted or fabricated
their origin stories.

♪ ♪

I had, like, a book

that had all of the different
photos of my arrival

that my parents
had put together.

Growing up, I really had access
to my paperwork.

I really believed so much

of what was written
and documented as truths

and my truths of who I was.

I have this case number tattooed
on my back. (laughs)

And so I, I really identified
with it.

(typewriter keys clacking)

My name is Robyn Joy Park.

I was adopted to the U.S.
in 1982.

♪ ♪

After college, I decided

I'm going to
just pack my backpack

and move back to Korea.

KIM: To help find
her birth parents,

Robyn Park reached out to
Eastern Social Welfare Society,

the agency
that handled her adoption.

It was really fast.

I was notified that they

had located and contacted
this birth mother.

♪ ♪

I think a part of me was just,
you know,

in kind of shock and awe

that this was
just really happening.

We held hands and
sat on this little couch.

I'll never forget

her spoon-feeding me rice
for the first time.

The relationship with her
developed over time.

It was about, like, six years.

The deepening
of the relationship,

it meant everything.

♪ ♪

I didn't know about
my biological father.

It was kind of
a sensitive topic.

My now-husband,
he's a forensic scientist

and works with DNA.

And so, I requested a DNA test
to be able to have her profile.

And then based
on that information,

my husband would be able
to kind of create

this profile
for a biological father.

The moment that I learned about
the results for the DNA test,

um, was a, a really

surreal moment.

All the, the profile markers
that should have indicated

that we were
biologically related

were showing that we weren't.

♪ ♪

I learned that this was not
my biological mother.

Initially,
it was kind of denial,

like, "No, this can't be true."

You know, that, like...
(laughs)

All the paperwork that I, I've
had shows otherwise.

And we shared the DNA results
with her, and...

It was pretty devastating,
seeing her response to it.

And really kind of flipped
my world upside down, um,

and had me really questioning,
then, like,

"Well, well, who am I, then?"

(traffic humming in distance)

I brought this forward
to Eastern, the Korean agency.

They were in shock.

They were trying
to cobble together

some sort of response, you know,

and suggest that,
that it was another

potential adoptee case
that I was switched with.

♪ ♪

I had never met anyone
who had had similar experiences.

The first case
that I learned about

was through
"The Ricki Lake Show."

So I took the DNA test,
and the people who I had met,

whose names had always been
on my birth records,

were not genetically related
to me.

I went on this show.

I was just hoping that maybe
someone out there would

maybe have a similar experience,
or have a lead.

Were you able to find
your biological parents?

I'm in the process right now.

It was just
mind-blowing to know, like,

"Oh, my goodness,
I'm not alone in this."

So I actively pursued,
you know, her,

and since then,
we've really been able

to meet more switched cases.

It's really revealed to us

that we're not
isolated incidences,

that there's
quite a large amount of us.

♪ ♪

My story's, like,
straight out of a

"Choose Your Own Adventure,"
man.

An adventure that, like,
nobody would choose.

(typewriter keys clacking)

I'm Michaela Dietz.

I arrived in the States

in February 1983.

I had follow-up calls
with Eastern

to figure out why
the DNA test was not a match.

Eastern actually
never apologized,

and they didn't really
admit fault.

They said, in looking back
at their records,

the only thing
that they could determine

was that two girls were born
on the same day,

and perhaps
their paperwork was switched.

♪ ♪

KIM: With new details Eastern
provided her from their files,

she was able to track down
her family.

♪ ♪

In 2015,

she went back to South Korea
to meet them.

I learned pretty early on

that my birth father died
in the '90s,

my birth mother was alive,

and that I had
four biological sisters.

Hi.

(cries)
Oh, my God.

Oh, my gosh.

Meeting my sisters
for the first time is,

I think, one of the,
the highlights of my life.

And then meeting my birth mother

was a lot different.

It was hard--
it was really hard.

Umma!

(crying)

(sobbing)

She never explained to me
directly.

And I think, um, you know,
giving me up,

it just was too much
for her to handle.

But I actually tracked down
the man

who was very close
with my birth father.

My birth father said
to his friend

he wanted me
to have a better life.

But this man told me,

"Why'd you wait so long?

"Your birth father,
he wanted to meet you,

"and he left all the information
for you in your files.

His name, his phone number,
contact, everything."

And that's, I think, one
of the hardest things to hear,

is, like,
he was expecting me to,

you know, reach out.

And even if I wanted to,

I couldn't, because our records
were switched.

I mean, it's just Shakespearean,
in a way.

(laughs softly)

♪ ♪

KIM: Unlike Michaela,
Robyn still hasn't been able

to locate her biological family.

I reached out to Eastern,

which handled
both of their cases,

to find out why the switches
happened.

Eastern declined
an on-camera interview,

but I did get to talk
with the president of Eastern,

and she defended
the agency's practices.

She said it was
a overall process

of finding Western homes
for discarded children

who otherwise wouldn't have had
a chance at a decent life.

She acknowledged there was some
adoptions that went wrong,

but she described them as
mistakes or isolated incidents

that happens because so
many children were being sent.

♪ ♪

When I spoke
to the investigators

from the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission,

they told me they'd also
found several switched cases.

PARK HYEJIN
(speaking Korean):

♪ ♪

KIM: This is a summary
of a meeting

between the government

and the head
of the adoption agencies.

Do you know
when this meeting was?

KIM: Yeah, it was in 1982.
Oh, wow, okay.

KIM: Adoptions in South Korea
hit their peak in the 1980s,

with an annual average
of around 6,000 children

sent abroad every year.

In our investigation,

we found internal
Health Ministry documents

that show the government
knew there were serious problems

in the country's
adoption system.

They were aware that there were
child intake problems,

which refers to how they were

procuring these children
from different sources.

Yeah.
What problems

are they describing with intake?

KIM: This doesn't
specify the problems,

but when they get to the part
about discussing fees,

they say they should control
fees to a level

so that it doesn't

create concerns
about human trafficking.

♪ ♪

Agencies were no longer
just relying

on the orphanage system
to receive babies.

They were sending workers
to actively gather the babies

in what some critics call
as a process

that amounted to baby hunting.

That meant adoption workers
were touring poor neighborhoods

looking for
financially struggling parents

who could be persuaded
to give away their babies.

Most importantly,

they were sending
adoption workers to hospitals

and maternity homes
and other birth venues.

♪ ♪

PHILSIK SHIN
(speaking Korean):

KIM: Researcher Philsik Shin
has studied how

hospitals and maternity homes
became a major source

of children for adoption.

SHIN (speaking Korean):

KIM: His research has raised
questions about

about the common practice of
labeling children as "abandoned"

to facilitate adoption,

and he points to the fact
that the number of adoptees

during the '80s
was often ten times higher,

or more, than the number
of children

reported as "abandoned" to
police.

SHIN (speaking Korean):

♪ ♪

What do you do when
you find out your origin story

is marked with
grievous injustice?

(typewriter keys clacking)

My name is Robert Calabretta.

That was my given name
at adoption.

I was adopted at the age
of supposedly six months old.

When I look back at it,
I was grieving for a language,

a culture,
a person that I had lost.

And so that began

the quest for, you know,
who am I, really?

Where do I come from?

I contacted Holt.

Within a couple of months,

they came back saying,
you know, "We're sorry.

"Everything that you have
is on the short,

like, two-page dossier,"

which essentially said,
"Your parents met at a office

"that they both worked at, they
were not married, they had you,

"they wanted to keep you,
but they were too young.

And so your mother put you up
for adoption."

And that was the story
that I was given.

A good portion of adoptees
in my community,

they were able to find
their family

or information about themselves
using

a Korean government organization

called National Center
for the Rights of the Child.

So I filled out
their application.

And this is 2019.

It took them three months
to get through to me.

And I got a email saying,
"We have good news.

"Your father called us today."

He became very emotional,
but also a little confused.

We started video calling.

He was, like, "Your mother
and I thought you were dead."

Everything just
kind of fades to black.

What do you do when

you have someone come back
from the dead 30 years later?

♪ ♪

KIM: Robert Calabretta
returned to Seoul in 2020

to meet his father and mother,

and has been visiting them
every year since.

Hey.

Oh!
Uh...

(laughing)

(speaking Korean):

(Calabretta murmurs,
Lee laughing)

CALABRETTA:

LEE:

(laughing)

CALABRETTA:

(both laughing)

LEE:

(Calabretta responds,
Lee reacts)

LEE:

CALABRETTA:

(both murmur)

LEE:

CALABRETTA:

(both laughing)

CALABRETTA:

KIM: Lee Sung Soo,
Robert's father,

told me that contrary to
what's in the adoption papers,

he and Robert's mother
were married

and looking forward
to raising their first child.

LEE (speaking Korean):

KIM: He told me
that the hospital director

proposed a solution to him

and another new father
with infant twins.

LEE (speaking Korean):

♪ ♪

KIM: The hospital, which was
a source for many adoptions,

has long since closed,
and its records were destroyed.

I wasn't able to find
the director from the time,

or the other father.

But I reviewed Robert's
adoption documents from Holt.

They say he had pneumonia,
but there is no mention

of any surgery.

He was described as a "normal
healthy baby, adoptable."

LEE (speaking Korean):

Mm.

KIM: Holt Korea would not
answer questions

about Robert's case,
or any other specific adoptions.

But its former president told me
Holt and

other agencies were just
following government policy

in sending kids abroad.

By the end of the 1980s,
uncomfortable questions

were beginning to be raised

about the country's
adoption system.

South Korea is ready to show
the world a pristine city.

KIM:
South Korea was modernizing,

transitioning away
from a military dictatorship

to a democracy.

(crowd chanting)

Protests denouncing
the government

and calling for an uprising...

KIM: This was during the time
when South Korea was also

preparing to host
the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.

The games were
his top priority.

The president-elect
needs to prove Korea

has gained a political maturity
to match its economic progress.

(counting in Korean)

(audience cheers and applauds)

KIM: The 1988 Seoul Olympics
for South Korea

was billed
as the country's arrival

in the international stage

as an economic power
and a newborn democracy.

It was its coming out party
to the world.

In a few hours' time,

the 24th Olympiad
will get underway.

KIM: Korea loved the
international attention it got.

But there was also
the concerns about

how the Western media

was focusing
on its adoption program.

This is a shame--
national shame.

They should be cared
by our people.

The authorities are
embarrassed

by this export of human beings.

KIM: And the government
was very sensitive

about its international
reputation.

In the wake of the Olympics,

the South Korean government
conducted

its first meaningful audit
of the adoption system.

A lot of different types
of birth mothers

in different situations were
sucked into the adoption system.

In this document,
it covers a lot of wrongdoings.

It includes payments
to hospitals,

maternity homes, or other venues
where women gave birth.

This audit report was probably

the most significant accounting
by the government

of problems
in the adoption system,

pulling together years

of internal warnings
under previous dictatorships.

And then what happened
after this came out?

KIM: So this coincided
with government efforts

to just clean up the acts.

Their focus was to stop
the direct intakes

from hospitals
and maternity homes for babies.

And once they do it,
you see adoptions dropping

once the government
clamped down.

Certainly, just
before the Olympics,

there was a lot of introspection
about,

"What are we going to do?

"The world is going to see us
on the world stage,

and what will we do
about adoption?"

That was a huge concern
in the '80s.

KIM: There's a lot of reports

about the government,
internally,

raising, raising concerns
about how adoption agencies

were gathering children
and paying hospitals

for unwed mothers
to provide their babies.

How much were you aware
of these, you know, allegations

or concerns being expressed
in Korea at the time?

What you're talking about
with regard to paying hospitals,

I mean, I don't know about that

in terms of, did the agency

pay the hospital bill
for the mother?

Maybe.

I mean, I don't know
how that worked,

but as far as a, a bribe
or a payoff or a, um,

I don't know,
a finder's fee or something,

I'm not aware of that.

At the peak, it was,
mid-1980s,

more than 8,000 children
were leaving Korea.

Is it sort of your understanding

that if they had not been
adopted abroad,

almost all of those children

would've grown up
in orphanage institutions?

Yes.
That's your belief?

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

What else
would they have done?

I think the other side
would say is that

agencies
or agency representatives

were going to hospitals
and encouraging families

to give their children up,
and if that hadn't happened,

maybe they would've grown up
with their birth families.

Some of these children
would've never even entered

an institution
if it hadn't been

for very active
adoption agencies

working on the ground.
But see,

that's a premise
that I don't accept.

I...

Certainly, that is not, um,

what I'm familiar with.

So, when adoptions
are done improperly,

it puts to risk
the entire process.

What is good about it is, is
lost to, you know, what is bad.

Has there ever been
inappropriate adoption?

Probably, yeah, I mean, I,
I think that's probably true.

I think mistakes were made,
um...

But was there deliberate intent?

I, I don't think so--
I, I believe not.

♪ ♪

KIM: By the 1990s,

adoptions out of South Korea had
dropped from a peak of 8,000

to just over 2,000 a year.

And in 2007, the U.S. ratified

an international agreement
known as

the Hague Convention
on Intercountry Adoption,

which established standards
to ensure

that adoptions are made

in the best interests
of the child.

After Hague,

people began to look

at what was in front of them.

They were looking at these
adoptions

and trying to figure out,

is this child really an orphan?

What do you think
is the U.S. government's

responsibility now in addressing
those concerns of the past?

In addressing
the concerns of the past,

I think we just have to promise

not to make the same mistakes
that we did.

And I think that

that might be the best
that we can do.

And promise to listen
to the voices

of everyone that's involved
in the process.

♪ ♪

KIM: As the State Department
has begun

looking back on adoptions
in the '70s and '80s,

they told us
their early findings suggest

there may have been
adoptions based

on falsified documentation,

though they said they have
no indication

U.S. officials were aware of it.

Some U.S. agencies
have paused

accepting children
from South Korea.

In Europe,
France and Switzerland

have publicly acknowledged
their inaction

on preventing abuses.

Denmark and the Netherlands
no longer allow

international adoptions
from any country,

and Sweden has stopped
taking children

from South Korea entirely.

South Korea
is really important

in the conversation about

the future
of intercountry adoption.

Adoption agencies created an
adoption industry in South Korea

and then moved around the world
to almost every continent.

What happened in South Korea
and what is happening now

in South Korea
will say a lot

about sort of
the very foundation

of the intercountry adoption
industry.

KIM: In South Korea,

recent reforms,
including a 2011 law

that re-instituted
judicial oversight,

has led to a significant drop
in foreign adoptions--

just 79 last year.

♪ ♪

Most of the focus now is
on preventing future abuses

and helping adoptees
reconcile their pasts.

By 2025, the government has
pledged to make it easier

for adoptees to get access
to their adoption records.

But the agency responsible
for amassing all those files

concedes it's
a huge undertaking.

SARA YUN (speaking Korean):

KIM:

YUN:

Good morning.
Morning.

KIM: For the last five years,
Alice Stephens

has been struggling
to track down

her South Korean birth mother,
who gave her up in the '60s.

I've also been told
that it's the most common name

for Korean women at that time.

So it's like looking
for Jane Smith...

Yeah.
...in the U.S.

Adoptees,
as they're trying to use

their paperwork,
thinking it's gonna lead

to the truth of their adoption

and their biological parents,

it just leads back
to the system.

Built into the design of it
was not a returning adoptee

who later in life will want
to know where they came from

and who they might
be related to.

The paperwork produces
a child that's adoptable.

It doesn't record a history.

I'm hoping that's her name.

KIM: Alice had more to go on
than most adoptees:

a name and some basic
information.

But still, no success.

Looking for my birth mother

has been an exercise
in extreme frustration.

It's just kind of
a bureaucratic maze.

I'm trying to follow
the procedures right now!

I've, I've gone
through avenue and avenue,

and now I'm trying
another avenue.

You could go
to the police station,

you can go and submit your DNA
to the government.

You can do all these things.

But they give you
very little help.

♪ ♪

I'm just extremely angry

at the way that
the whole system was set up.

♪ ♪

They made it impossible for me
to find my birth mother,

and for my birth mother
to find me.

♪ ♪

This is where my father
would come

to visit my mother
from the Army base.

This is the closest thing I have
to my origins.

You know, to think that
I was probably born here is,

it's very moving,
very emotional to think

that my mother lived here.

(voice trembling): And my father
visited her.

Here.

I've got to keep searching
for her, definitely.

♪ ♪

How do you live as a family

that has had such
an early disruption?

My mother, my dad,
they have no idea who I am.

I used to be angry,
and now I'm just flabbergasted.

I think I've come to peace
with my own story

that I may or may not know
in my lifetime.

So if you want to talk
about ultimate accountability,

I think that, clearly,

state policies had something
to do with it.

There was, uh,
an interest in adoption

as a form of population control.

Each moment
in South Korean modernity

has had adoption fulfill
a certain function.

So mixed-race children
were a problem-- adoption.

Oh, you have children who
are poor and in institutions,

or you have children

born out of wedlock, or you have
children from divorce,

whatever the issue,
decade by decade,

adoption has been seen
as a solution.

And, uh, and not, um,

scrutinized enough.

KIM: It's a dark side

of the country's
industrialization

that the country has

never been able to squarely
address and reconcile with.

Among the legacies of its
brutal military dictatorships

of the past,
adoptions could be the issue

that South Korea finds
most difficult to address.

♪ ♪

Last fall, Choi Young-ja was
finally going to be reunited

with her son, Frank.

We accompanied her to the
airport.

Frank didn't want to be shown on
camera.

(people talking in background)

(sighs)

(speaking Korean):

WOMAN:

CHOI:

(people talking in background)

CHOI:

♪ ♪

(crying):

(panting, crying)

(speaking Korean, sobbing)

Hello, Mom.
(sobbing)

(wailing):

(wailing)

I love you! I love you!

(wailing)

Go to pbs.org/frontline for a
Q&A with the team

that made this film.

There was a lot of emphasis
on maintaining

the pure Korean bloodline.

What our reporting has found
was that the adoption agencies

relied on the word ‘abandoned’.

And see additional reporting
with our partners at

The Associated Press.

Connect with FRONTLINE on
Facebook,

Instagram, and X, and stream
anytime on the PBS app, Youtube,

or pbs.org/frontline.

Captioned by

Media Access Group at WGBH

access.wgbh.org

For more on this and other
"FRONTLINE" programs,

visit our website at
pbs.org/frontline.

♪ ♪

FRONTLINE's "South Korea's
Adoption Reckoning" is available

on Amazon Prime Video.

♪ ♪