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Korean truth commission to investigate hundreds of possibly fraudulent overseas adoptions

Another 237 cases will be looked into by the commission, which had already begun a probe into 34 cases in December 2022

Photos of William Vorhees in Korea that appear in his adoption file (left), and a current photo of him. (courtesy of Vorhees)

Photos of William Vorhees in Korea that appear in his adoption file (left), and a current photo of him. (courtesy of Vorhees)

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Korea plans to investigate the adoption process in 237 cases between the 1960s and 1990s involving South Korean children suspected of having been adopted overseas under false pretenses.

This second decision to initiate an investigation comes after a prior one made in December of last year. Among those whose adoptions are being investigated is the US citizen William Vorhees, whose story was shared in a recent Hankyoreh report on fraudulent adoptions.

The Story of Jordy Nijkerk Who Rediscovered His Biological Parents Armed with Incomplete Adoption Documents

Senimah keeps her promise to the family that adopted her son, Jordy Nijkerk. He's not going to look for it. After being separated by thousands of kilometers for 43 years, mother and son were reunited.

REVELATION OF ZANUAR BUSTOMI, Surabaya

ARTIMAH could not hold back her tears when she met Jordy Nijkerk at Ngagel Mulyo Gang IV (3/5). Mother and child hug each other to miss. "I do not sell children," said Senimah.

Senimah has repeatedly said this sentence to emphasize that she really loves Jordy. He had been looking for his son. However, the family that adopted Agus Purnomo, Jordy's birth name, brought him to live in the Netherlands.

Not many words were spoken at the beginning of the mother and child encounter. The two of them just hugged each other. Senimah does not want to lose her child for the second time. Jordy finally found his biological mother back.

The fact that the government has destroyed dozens of meters of adoption files is criminal

Unimaginable. Dozens of meters of adoption files have been destroyed . Shredded by an unfeeling civil service. People with an adoption background often have a desperate need for this information. Because every snippet might provide answers to their most basic life questions.

Who am I? Who are my parents? Why couldn't they take care of me? Where do I come from? Where did they take me? Why do I have this appearance, this color? Why did I end up in another country? Why in Europe? Why in the Netherlands? Why in this adoptive family? Who, what, where, why, how?

They are endless questions that, if left unanswered, can lead to grief and lifelong trauma.

Wanting to know where you come from is a fundamental building block of human existence. The grief of children of sperm donors shows us how deep that longing can be, how groping in the dark seems to pull the bottom out of your life.

For adoptees you can do quite a bit on top of that. Because no matter how lovingly you are taken care of in your adoptive family; being separated from your birth mother is already traumatizing. Let alone the chaos of being given up, staying in a home and being dragged from place to place. Already in the womb, a fetus attaches itself to the mother, we now know from research. A fetus becomes familiar with the voice and movements of the mother and even starts learning the language in the last term of the pregnancy.

The Brutal Past and Uncertain Future of Native Adoptions

The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 sought to keep Native children in tribal communities. The Supreme Court may change that this spring.

Childhood photos of Chris Stearns, who was born a Navajo, but was raised by white parents in New Jersey. One photograph of him, at about age 3, shows him wearing red overalls. The other shows him with his adoptive parents.

Childhood photos of Chris Stearns, who was born a Navajo, but was raised by white Evangelical parents in New Jersey. Credit...Kholood Eid for The New York Times

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The Brutal Past and Uncertain Future of Native Adoptions

The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 sought to keep Native children in tribal communities. The Supreme Court may change that this spring.

Childhood photos of Chris Stearns, who was born a Navajo, but was raised by white parents in New Jersey. One photograph of him, at about age 3, shows him wearing red overalls. The other shows him with his adoptive parents.

Childhood photos of Chris Stearns, who was born a Navajo, but was raised by white Evangelical parents in New Jersey. Credit...Kholood Eid for The New York Times

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Woo's request regarding the report on the Commission's investigation into intercountry adoption

Woo's request regarding the report on the Commission's investigation into intercountry adoption

Top on adoptions from South Korea: - Must be thoroughly investigated

- We can no longer rule out that illegal adoption to Norway has been very extensive, says Minister for Children and Families Kjersti Toppe after VG's revelations about South Korea.

Yesterday VG was able to reveal systematic cheating in adoption papers from South Korea:

Children were listed as orphans in the adoption papers that got them to Norway - despite the fact that their mothers were alive and known to the adoption agency.

This is shown by reports after inspection trips that VG has been given access to. Thus, adoptions could take place without the consent of the biological parents.

On Saturday, seven adoptees from South Korea shared their stories in VG.

Foreign adoptee Maiken Helene (22) has felt ugly for large parts of her life

For large parts of her life, Maiken Helene Bergsmo has tried to push away the fact that she is an adopted child. She calls for better follow-up of people adopted abroad.

- It has been difficult for mum and dad to understand. In recent years, it has dawned on them how challenging it can be to have dark skin.

Maiken Helene Bergsmo was born on 8 March 2001 and was found in a cardboard box along the street in the Chinese city of Shanghai.

Two years later, Bergsmo sat on the plane with his new Norwegian family on the way to Harstad. Bergsmo has been told that the tears fell when the snow in northern Norway hit her shoe.

Today, Bergsmo studies journalism at Oslo Metropolitan University. She smiles widely when she meets the journalist in Framtida, but behind the smile there is also a lot of seriousness.

SUCCESS STORIES - Delhi Council For Child Welfare

Asha Dijkstra

My name is Asha, being born in Delhi in 1979 but moved to the Netherlands at the age of 5 months. My name means hope and this has been my guide in life. As soon as you get a name, you are a person with an identity, which grows with you each day. My name fills the emptiness I have when it comes to the feelings related to adoption. Now 34 years later, I realize and I still feel I belong to India because of my name.

I grew up in Holland, with my mum and dad. My father passed away when I was 9 years old. I don’t have any siblings, something which I always regretted. I missed being surrounded by sisters and brothers, especially someone from India, I could relate to.

In 1995 I visited India for the first time with my mum. Palna was also on the list, a very special place for me and very emotional also. I was 15 years old at that time and was overwhelmed by emotions. It was all too much for me: meeting my biological family, visiting the hospital where I was born, seeing & experiencing the poverty, a big contrast to Holland.

However deep down I felt very strongly connected with my birthplace, although I could not go there. I first wanted to finish my master’s studies in History of Education and organize my life by finding a job like a responsible adult. For me it was very important that I’m financially independent and stable. I’m positive and enjoy small things in life. I like to travel with Joost (my boyfriend), spending time with my friends, who are really important for me, attending concerts and playing keyboards and saxophone. Music is very important in my life. It took 13 years before I visited India again. In 2008 I went back, this time with Joost and we travelled 5 weeks from North to the South. I was very happy and calm being in India, I felt like home. Since then I try to come every year. India is my second home, which gives me a lot of comfort. I hope to discover lots of places, although I don’t feel like a tourist. During my last visit I met some really nice people who become good friends. It feels good to be part of their lives. In this way I explore my Indian side, I feed my genes and learn more about the culture. In some aspects I see it in myself; I love spicy Indian food and I do like cooking it. I don’t like winter in Holland as I hate snow and cold weather, but I have no problems with thirty degrees, in contrast of many Dutch people.

Not Feeling “American Enough”: The Mental Impact of Cross-Cultural Adoption

When Eun Ae Koh was 8 months old, she was adopted from her birthplace in Korea by two white Americans. Overnight, she gained two loving parents, three older brothers, and an older sister and spent her childhood and teen years growing up in rural Illinois, about three and a half hours south of Chicago, not far off from fields of soybeans and corn. With her parents’ older biological children already grown up and moved out, it wasn’t until the pair adopted a second child, from China, a decade later, that Koh saw anyone who looked like her at home.

“Growing up, I was really only ever around white people,” says Koh, now a 30-something Washington, D.C.-based artist. “That’s what my town looked like, that’s what my school looked like, that’s what my family looked like. There was no exposure to anything Korean at all. I always felt different.”

Koh is far from alone. After a rise in Asian adoptees in the US in the 1990s, many of these children are now in their 20s and 30s and dealing with the mental health impacts of growing up in white families who didn’t resemble them, and were unable to guide them through the unique experience of growing up a person of color in America. Today, they’re finding solace in their own communities and are working to create new systems that can help future cross-cultural adoptees walk an easier path.

The vast majority of Asian adoptees in the US born in China can be attributed to 1991, when China launched its international adoption program, through which adoptive parents were led to believe that adoptees had been found abandoned – whether at orphanages, or on the streets. In reality, China’s one-child policy and a preference for boys led to a mass of abandoned infant girls. Since, roughly 110,000 children have been adopted from China globally, according to Kerry O'Halloran’s 2015 book The Politics of Adoption, with the majority coming to the US. And in 1981, the Korean government made inter-country adoption more accessible in hopes of raising emigration rates, leading to a wave of Korean adoptees from the mid-’80s to ‘90s.

While Koh adores her parents for providing a better life, it doesn’t erase the many and often invisible hardships she went through while growing up in America. She recalls being bullied for looking different and being called slurs, and because her parents and educators weren’t equipped to discuss how this might feel and what it might mean (with few resources provided through her adoption agency or at her school), she eventually learned to “fly under the radar,” to stop standing up for herself, to be small, to be quiet, she shares. What’s worse is her family and friends would insist they didn’t see her any differently than themselves. To Koh, that felt as good as being told they didn’t see color.