July 17, 2025
SEOUL – In just a few days, South Korea will officially end its decadeslong practice of allowing private agencies to handle adoptions and begin a new era in which the state takes primary responsibility for the process, grounded in public oversight and the protection of children’s rights.
The shift is more than a bureaucratic change. It is a historical reckoning.
For over 70 years, beginning in the aftermath of the Korean War, South Korea sent more than 170,000 children overseas for adoption, a number some experts say is closer to 250,000 when unofficial records are considered. This made Korea one of the most prolific “exporters” of children in the world.
Data and records show that countless children who did not truly need to be sent away were “exported” for adoption.
“There are some babies that should not have been sent overseas for adoption,” said Hellen Noh, professor emeritus of social welfare at Soongsil University.
Noh’s research revealed that some adoptees were taken from their families under false pretenses. She told cases where hospitals told mothers their newborns had died or were too sick to survive, only to secretly hand those babies over to adoption agencies to be sent abroad.
Official paperwork was often forged or manipulated. Noh notes that it became “almost customary” to label children as “abandoned” even when they had known parents or relatives.
By the late 1980s, private adoption agencies were acquiring the majority of infants directly from hospitals. In 1988, about 60 percent of the children adopted out of Korea came straight from maternity wards, often through illicit arrangements between agencies and hospitals.
What’s changing
Under the new system, domestic and international adoptions will be regulated separately by two new laws: the Special Act on Domestic Adoption and the Act on Intercountry Adoption.
Both were passed by the National Assembly in 2023 and come into force this Saturday. With these changes, the Ministry of Health and Welfare becomes the primary authority on adoption policy, while local governments and the National Center for the Rights of the Child will directly oversee procedures.
“From July 19, the state, local governments and the NCRC will carry out what private adoption agencies have handled until now,” the NCRC said in a written response. “All procedures will be based on the best interests of the child, as laid out in the Hague Adoption Convention.”
The reforms reorganize how adoptions are handled from beginning to end, both domestically and internationally.
In domestic adoptions, local governments will identify and protect children in need of adoption before placement. Prospective adoptive parents will apply through the NCRC, which will assign certified agencies to conduct family counseling and home studies.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare’s adoption policy committee will review and approve child-parent matches, with the NCRC serving as its secretariat. Courts will continue to issue final adoption approvals and now have the power to authorize temporary custody before final approval, to support early bonding.
In international adoptions, the state becomes the official “central authority,” responsible for overseeing both outbound (Korean children abroad) and inbound (overseas children to Korea) adoptions. The Ministry of Health and Welfare negotiates procedures with other countries and monitors post-adoption welfare.
Certified agencies conduct screening and monitoring, while the courts finalize placements.
Children’s participation is also newly enshrined in law. Courts must now listen to adoptees’ views regardless of age, a change from the previous threshold of 13 years old.
Regarding the future of the private adoption agencies, their role in the adoption process would be eradicated.
“If they apply and pass as the ministry’s outsourced social welfare institutions, they can work in certain parts but they will not have a special position in the process because they were once adoption agencies,” a Health Ministry official confirmed.
A private adoption agency officials carry babies who are finalized for adoption on to the plane in December 1956. PHOTO: NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF KOREA/THE KOREA HERALD
‘It’s not just a system, it’s our life’
While many adoptees have welcomed South Korea’s adoption reform, they emphasize that for them, the issue is not just administrative — it is deeply personal.
“I think it’s great to move all those files to the government,” said one adoptee who was sent to a European country as a child and requested anonymity. “But there’s real chaos in the adoptee community right now,” she said.
“We don’t know what’s going on with the file transfer. Are we sure they’re really moving everything? Are they giving up on anything along the way? That’s what we’re scared of.”
For many adoptees, their adoption records — sometimes just a handwritten note or an intake form from decades ago — are the only remaining link to their birth families and origins. The nationalization of adoption has meant that these records are now being transferred from private agencies to the NCRC. But the process, some say, has been opaque and confusing.
“It’s not just a document. It’s about who we are. These documents are the only legacy we have from Korea,” she emphasized.
Access to the files is also a growing issue. During the transition, adoptees have faced delays and uncertainty.
“For the past few months, we haven’t been able to access anything. Not from the agencies, not from the NCRC,” she said. “They need time to archive and organize the materials, and I understand that. But we need to be told what’s happening.”
For her, the hope is that greater public awareness, stronger support systems, and more inclusive attitudes will lead to a future where children in need are embraced within Korean society.
“Korean society should see us as assets. Not discriminating (against) us by saying, ‘Why don’t you speak Korean?’” she added.”It’s not the pity look we need, we would love to hear how Korea is proud of us, how much they want us here, how much they welcome us.”
Adopted babies are carried out from a private jet. PHOTO: NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF KOREA/THE KOREA HERALD
Challenges ahead
Despite the landmark reform, structural and logistical challenges loom large.
As of mid-2025, the state has received original documents from only four major adoption agencies. Records held by many child welfare institutions remain unaccounted for. Even among those received, secure and permanent storage remains a challenge.
The NCRC had requested 2.4 billion won this year to establish proper storage facilities, but only 1.78 billion won was approved. A temporary archive has been established controversially, in a former logistics warehouse near Goyang’s Jichuk Station.
“It’s painful to hear that adoptees’ documents, these irreplaceable pieces of their identity, are sitting in a remote warehouse with poor transportation access,” said Noh said.
The government has pledged to build a permanent adoption archive in the future, but no timeline has been announced. Meanwhile, access to records remains heavily restricted.
Under current law, adoptees may only obtain personal information about birth parents if the parents are deceased and the request meets a narrowly defined medical or legal threshold.
A constitutional review is now underway on whether such limits violate adoptees’ right to know their origins.
‘Adoption must be the last resort’
For Noh, the deeper issue is not how well the adoption system works but how little is done to prevent the need for adoption in the first place.
“Adoption is not the solution we should be working toward,” she said. “What we need to build is a society where every family, regardless of its form, has the support to raise their own children.”
She pointed to the legacy of coercion and profit in South Korea’s international adoption system.
“Too many children were sent abroad not because it was best for them, but because it sustained institutions and made money,” she said. “That must never happen again.”
She also underscored the need for support services for struggling families, including single parents, disabled caregivers and low-income households, so that children are not separated due to poverty or stigma.
“If a child can grow up safely and lovingly in their birth family, that’s what should happen,” she said. “Only when that is impossible, and I mean truly impossible, should adoption be considered.”
South Korea, she added, must also confront its social biases.
“When a single mother wants to raise her child, she’s often called selfish. There’s no celebration, only shame. That has to change,” she said.
The shift to public adoption coincides with South Korea’s long-delayed ratification of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, which is expected to take effect in late October.
The convention, adopted globally in 1993, seeks to prevent child trafficking and ensure ethical standards in international adoptions. Korea had joined the treaty in 2013 but failed to ratify it due to misalignment with domestic law, a gap now being closed through the 2023 legislation.
Still, the road ahead is uncertain. Many of the reforms will require further legislative action and budgetary support under the new administration following the June 3 presidential election.
jychoi@heraldcorp.com
