FRONTLINE and The Associated Press examine allegations of fraud and abuse in South Korea’s historic foreign adoption boom. The documentary investigates cases of falsified records and identities among the adoptions of 200,000 children to the U.S. and other countries over decades.

Ricki Mudd was born in 1993 in China during the one-child policy era. She remembers her early childhood only in fragments, but has been told she had spent some of it hidden in a bag.

At age 5, she was adopted from a Chinese orphanage, one of the more than 150,000 children China sent overseas. Most were girls. In the West, they were one of the most visible consequences of the one-child policy, which ended in 2016. This month, Beijing put an end to foreign adoptions. 

China is grappling with a demographic crisis, with dropping birthrates and a rapidly aging population. The policies to control the population have given way to new ones in the opposite direction. But a legacy of the one-child policy is a dearth of women of childbearing age.

Because of a government decree that led to forced abortions and sterilizations, millions of girls were never born or were hidden from authorities. In the process, China’s gender ratio became increasingly skewed, with 117 boys born for every 100 girls in 2004, compared with 106 in 1980, United Nations data showed. 

A U.N. Population Fund study based on China’s 2010 census estimates the country’s “missing girls,” or females who in regular circumstances would have been born but who were absent from the population, at 24 million.

21 March 2023
As an organisation, we reognise and work with adoptees and adoption organisations recognising the impact of forced adoption practises and the continued need for transparency and support throughout the adoption process.  Below is a letter sent to members of parlament raising the concerns of the wider adoption community we have signed, 10 years on.

We wish to express our unreserved support for those impacted by forced adoptions in Australia, and our recognition of the immense courage, determination, energy, and grief entailed in coming forward and sharing their experiences. We commend the Australian Government’s recognition of past harms and abuses, and the offerings of formal apologies to communities who bear the lifelong impacts of forced family separation. Gillard’s formal apology in 2013 and Australia’s commitment to increased openness of records and provision of support services was closely watched by adoptee communities overseas and in Australia and is viewed by many as an example to which governments around the world should aspire.
Concerns were raised in the lead up to the 2013 National Apology, regarding the lack of acknowledgement of intercountry adoption and adoptees. Ten years later, we urge you to consider whether it is possible to justify viewing intercountry adoption as exempt from the issues identified in domestic adoption practices. Like domestic adoption and its impacts, which were so poignantly articulated in Gillard’s Apology, issues of consent, coercion, mistreatment, and stigma surrounding single motherhood are also embedded in intercountry adoption practices. 
While there are some safeguards in place, such as the Hague Convention, there are no guarantees that intercountry adoption practices are exempt from the harms identified by the Senate Community Affairs References Committee in 2012. For example, child trafficking has been identified in the cases of Australian intercountry adoptions from Taiwan, India, and Ethiopia. The UN’s Joint Statement on Illegal Intercountry Adoptions in 2022 is testament to ongoing concerns around vulnerabilities in the intercountry adoption system and human rights violations. 
Responding on behalf of the Australian Prime Minister,  a recent letter to Ms Lynelle Long of Intercountry Adoptee Voices, was sent from Tim Crosier (Branch Manager of Children’s Policy Branch), advising  that the government is prioritising a focus on preventing and responding to illegal and illicit adoption practices, expatriate adoption and concerns about past ICA practices. This is a welcome and critical development in acknowledging intercountry adoption practices and their impacts. However, Australia has been historically slow in appropriately responding to the victims of these past practices in intercountry adoption and we would like to see Australia commit to investigating intercountry adoption practices with the intention of providing a formal apology and including appropriate remedies, particularly around support to our human right to identity and origins.
Our concerns are not limited to a handful of intercountry adoptees. In the years since the 2013 Apology, numerous receiving countries have launched investigations into intercountry adoption including Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden, and France – with Norway commencing an investigation in 2023. 
On the 10th anniversary of the National Apology for Forced Adoptions, we kindly request that:

• Intercountry adoption no longer be considered separate from Australian adoption more broadly;
• Intercountry adoptees be recognised as facing, along with their domestically adopted peers, struggles with identity, belonging, uncertainty, and loss, which can be painful and lifelong; and
• The Australian government commits to an investigation into intercountry adoption practices given Australia’s legal and ethical commitment to ensuring intercountry adoption respects fundamental human rights under the Hague Convention for Intercountry Adoption and the United Nations Conventions: specifically the conventions on the Rights of the Child, Enforced Disappearances, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, and All forms of Discrimination against Women.
• Where it has been proven that an adoptee was stolen from their country of origin, a redress must be considered, as has been done after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

We ask that you also consider what it means to continue to exclude intercountry adoption from a broader acknowledgment of forced adoptions and the message this sends: that overseas born adoptees and their original families do not face similar challenges, and that our experiences and the community-based knowledge we have patiently and painfully amassed over the years does not matter. At this significant historical juncture, we ask you to consider the impacts of this double standard on us, our siblings, families, partners, and our children, who also inherit the legacy of family separation.
Kind regards,
Australian Intercountry Adoptees
           Leah Hamilton, adopted from South Korea, residing in Queensland

1. Julie Colbert, adopted from Korea to QLD
2. Dr Indigo Willing, adopted from Vietnam and residing in QLD, Australia. Adjunct Research Fellow, Griffith University. Founder, Adopted Vietnamese International (AVI). 
3. Benjamin Kelleher, adopted from Brazil, residing in Queensland
4. Kim Faulkner, adopted from Indonesia, residing in NSW
5. Brooke Arcia, adopted from Sri Lanka to NSW
6. Kisharni Eggleton, adopted from Sri Lanka, NSW, Australia. Founder of Sri Lankan Adoptees in Australia
7. Emma Pham, fostered from Vietnam to NSW in 1973, adopted at 1990
8. Meg O’Shea, adopted from South Korea and residing in NSW, Australia US Korean Rights Group (AUSKRG)
9. Kisani Hayes. Adopted from Sri Lanka, NSW Australia
10. Samara James, adopted from South Korea, living in Sydney, Australia. 
11. Michelle Piper, adopted from Korea, residing in NSW, Australia. Committee member of Australia US Korean Rights Group (AUSKRG).
12. Damian Rocco, adopted from Vietnam to NSW
13. Linzi Ibrahim, adopted from Sri Lanka, NSW, Australia. Sri Lankan Adoptees Australia group 
14. Sara Vidler, adopted from Sri Lanka, Parkes, NSW, Australia 
15. Jaya Mather, adopted from Sri Lanka 1983, living in New South Wales Australia 
16. Dr Liz Goode, adopted from South Korea, residing in NSW 
17. Paula Park, adopted from South Korea to NSW
18. Joel de Carteret, adopted from the Philippines, residing in NSW
19. Dominic Golding, adopted from VietNam, residing in ACT
20. Hannah Brugman, adopted from South Korea, living in ACT, Australia
21. Jai Jaru, adopted from Thailand to South Australia 1981
22. Roopali Gulab Meshram (Paula Karvouniaris) - illicit adoption from Preet Mandir, India, adopted to Adelaide South Australia 
23. Lalitha Robinson adopted from Sri Lanka to South Australia 
24. Sumana Filmer adopted from Sri Lanka to South Australia. 
25. Kimbra Smith, illegally adopted from Taiwan, living in South Australia, Australia
26. Hilina Winkenweder, adopted from Ethiopia 2001, living in South Australia
27. Theodora Sullivan, adopted from Greece to SA, founder of Adopted from Greece
28. Kai Hambour, adopted from India to SA
29. Thomas Philp, adopted from Thailand to South Australia. Adelaide. 
30. Min Mednis, adopted from Thailand to South Australia 
31. Lynelle Long adopted from Vietnam to VIC
32. Ebony Hickey illegally adopted from Haiti to Australia, Victoria.
33. Catherine Robinson, adopted from Malaysia to Victoria Australia
34. Dr Jessica Walton, adopted from South Korea, residing in VIC, committee member of Australia US Korean Rights Group (AUSKRG)
35. Dr Ryan Gustafsson, South Korea, residing in VIC, member of Ibyangin International Network & Australia US Korean Rights Group (AUSKRG)
36. Geetha Keogh, adopted from Sri Lanka, Black Rock VIC, Australia 
37. A.Gale, adopted from Vietnam, living in Victoria
38. Jack Hamilton, adopted from South Korea, living in Victoria
39. Mya Ballin, adopted from China to the US, residing in VIC
40. Ché Stevenson, adopted from South Korea to US, residing in Victoria
41. Tia Brown, adopted from South Korea, Perth Western Australia.
42. Carly Reid, adopted from South Korea to Australia, residing in Perth, Western Australia
43. Meseret Cohen, adopted from Ethiopia, WA, Founder of Buna Chat
44. Chae Ryan, adopted from South Korea and living in WA, Australia US Korean Rights Group (AUSKRG)
45. Jasmine Eberhardt, adopted from South Korea to Tasmania
46. Jason Hardy, adopted from Vietnam to NSW, residing in NT
47. David Hopkins, adopted from Sri Lanka to NSW, living in Sydney 
48. Leanne Tololeski, adopted from South Korea, residing in Western Australia
    
    InterCountry Adoptee Voices (ICAV) - Australia wide & International  

Ibyangin International Network: Adopted Overseas Koreans Creating Change. Steering committee in Seoul, Melbourne, Montreal, Oregon, Idaho, and Copenhagen (https://www.ibyangin.org/)
Australian Domestic Adoptees
           Peter Capomolla Moore, domestic adoptee, President Adoptee Rights Australia Inc., NSW. 

At the age of 25, Lenna van den Haak tries to understand what her biological mother has just said to her. She was circumcised as a baby. Her mother points to a tree in front of her house: that's where it happened. Suddenly everything falls into place: the pain when cycling and during sex, the intense reaction to being touched 'down there'. When she discovers the truth, her world collapses.

"There is a life before and after Zandvoort," Lenna (now 42) begins her story. We drink coffee at her home. Her son Benjamin is sitting on the couch with headphones on. The seagulls fly in front of the windows, the beach is around the corner. In Zandvoort she has rebuilt her life. Here she has reinvented herself.

'Three women could be my mother'

First we go back to 2002. Lenna wants to look for her biological mother and travels for three months through Indonesia, the country where she was born. Her Dutch adoptive parents accompany her for the first two weeks. The journey begins in a monastery in Jakarta. It is run by a Dutch woman, Sister Lemmers. She helped Dutch adoptive parents during their process in Indonesia.

Lenna is lucky, an uncle of one of the sisters in the convent is visiting, who works in Lenna's native region. He will make some inquiries. He reported back within three days. "Three women said they could be my mother, but one woman's story matched the details that only we knew. We even looked alike."

The CJI DY Chandrachud led bench was hearing a petition for easing the adoption procedures under Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).

The Supreme Court on Tuesday warned as many as 30 States and Union Territories (UTs) of initiating contempt of court proceeding for failure to comply with the top court's previous directions pertaining to the establishment of Specialised Adoption Agencies (SAAs) in each district by January 31, 2024. 

The CJI DY Chandrachud led bench was hearing a petition for easing the adoption procedures under Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).

CARA is a statutory body of the Ministry of Women & Child Development and functions as the nodal body for adoption of Indian children and is mandated to monitor and regulate in-country and inter-country adoptions.

The Court warned that the Chief Secretaries of States/UTs will have to personally appear on the next date in case of non-compliance.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (July 9) expressed serious concerns over the non-compliance of several states in appointing Specialised Adoption Agencies (SAAs) within every district by January 31 2024. The Court has directed the Chief Secretaries of the States and UTs to strictly comply with the earlier order by August 30, 2024 failing which contempt proceedings may be initiated against them....

Georgian student Elene Deisadze was browsing TikTok in 2022 when she stumbled across the profile of a girl, Anna Panchulidze, who looked exactly like her.  

Months later, after chatting and becoming friends, they both separately learnt they were adopted, and last year decided to take a DNA test. 

It revealed they were not only related, but identical twins. 

"I had a happy childhood, but now my entire past felt like a deception," Anna, an English student at university, told AFP. 

Far from an innocent case of separation at birth, the sisters are among tens of thousands of Georgian children who were illegally sold in a decades-long baby trafficking scandal. 

While the CID claims it is still investigating matters, affected families hold on to hope and several of the accused – said to have political connections – are out on bail.

Jalpaiguri: It has been over eight years since Kajal Basfor last saw her son, Ganesh. In 2016, Ganesh ran away after facing his mother’s scolding and a beating. As per the Child Helpline record, he was found at New Jalpaiguri Station in North Bengal, following which the police took him to a temporary shelter.

Kajal came to Jalpaiguri hoping for a reunion, but was instead locked up at a shelter home called Ashraya. Her three-year-old daughter Dipali was forcefully taken away to another shelter home, Bimala Shishu Griha. While Kajal was released after a few days, Dipali was held captive at the home.

Seeking help, Kajal and her husband approached the Jalpaiguri Child Welfare Centre and the district collector. The Child Welfare Centre clarified that two members of the Child Welfare Committee, seeing Kajal’s emotional state, deemed her unfit to raise a child, leading to their separation.

Police said a 21-year-old woman delivered a baby girl four days ago at Tirupur Government Medical College Hospital.

COIMBATORE: The Tirupur police foiled an attempt by a young woman to give her infant on illegal adoption and inquiries are underway to punish the culprits.

Police said a 21-year-old woman delivered a baby girl four days ago at Tirupur Government Medical College Hospital.

Acting on a tip that the young mother is in talks for giving her baby, born before marriage, to a childless couple and the deal is being brokered by a temporary sanitary staff of the hospital, the Tirupur South police commenced an investigation.

On receiving a complaint from the hospital authorities, the District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) officers are holding a separate inquiry.

The CCB police arrested eight racketeers — seven women and one man — selling babies to childless couples for ₹8-10 lakh.

The Organised Crime Wing (OCW) of the Bengaluru City Police’s Central Crime Branch (CCB) has busted a child trafficking racket from Tamil Nadu and arrested a gang of eight — seven women and a man, their car driver.

The gang was apprehended when it was about to sell a 20-day-old baby boy to a childless couple in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in West Bengaluru on Friday, 24 November.

The CCB officials, who had credible information about the “deal”, had formed teams and were waiting near the Rajarajeshwari Nagar Temple on Friday evening for the gang members to make their move, a senior police officer told South First on Tuesday.

The CCB sleuths surrounded the car, in which three women and the driver were present with the baby, and rescued the infant.