When he was eight years old, James Sugrue was fostered out to live on a farm with an elderly couple and their adult son in Kilgarvan, Co Kerry. 

James and his two brothers – Michael and David – had been abandoned by their mother at the County Home in Killarney in 1959. Their father was in London for work.

Over the course of several years, James and Michael were abused, isolated and worked like slaves.

"We are the forgotten children," James, who is now 69 years old, told Prime Time. 

Tens of thousands of children were were fostered out, or "boarded out", in a system arranged by the State, according to Prof Conor O'Mahony, the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s presidential office said Monday it approved a request by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission for a one-year extension after investigators sought more time to examine human rights violations linked to past military governments, including the widespread falsifying of child origins that fueled a foreign adoption boom in the 1970s and ‘80s.

In granting the request for an extension through May 2025, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol acknowledged the need to “restore the honor of those who were unjustly victimized during our past history and those who sacrificed for the sake of the country,” said Hwang Sang Moo, senior secretary for civil and social affairs.

Commission chair Kim Kwang-dong is expected to announce the extension after a meeting of commissioners on Tuesday. While Kim had the nominal authority to extend the mandate by up to a year, the decision depended on the consent of the government, which would have to approve its budget.

Kim last month said a one-year extension beyond May 26 of this year was crucial because investigators are struggling to handle the thousands of cases.

Kim highlighted the investigation into the cases of 367 Korean adoptees from Europe, the United States and Australia who suspect their biological origins were manipulated to facilitate their adoptions. Some have asked the commission to look into abuse they say they experienced at South Korean orphanages or under the care of their foreign adopters.

The Karnataka High Court has directed a couple seeking intercountry relative adoption to petition the receiving country i.e Germany, where the father of the adopted child resides for communication to the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) for issuance of a No Objection Certificate and Conformity Certificate to take the child out of India. A single judge bench of Justice M...

When Kevin Heyel walked off his airplane and out of Concourse C this fall, he embraced his mother for the first time in his 58 years of life.

“Nice to finally meet you,” he said.

Barbara Kreft reached up to his 6-foot-6-inch frame and laughed, overjoyed that the baby she had been forced to give up for adoption was in her arms at last.

“I was worried about you,” she told him. “All the time.”

Kushinagar, UP: The visuals showed the woman using a sickle to hit the girl's neck multiple times when she approached her during household chores.

Lucknow:

A woman was seen repeatedly hitting her adopted daughter with a sickle in Uttar Pradesh. The horrifying visuals from Kushinagar district, captured from the terrace, showed the woman using a sickle to hit her neck multiple times when she approached her during household chores. It is not clear if the girl suffered any injury.

Amina Khatoon, who has no children of her own, had adopted the minor girl from a relative in West Champaran district. She has been arrested.

The girl was helping the woman while she was peeling vegetables, showed the video. She was passing tools and loitering around in free time. At one point, she sat near the woman with what looked like a book in her hands. Next moment, the woman could be seen twisting the girl's hand and attacking her with a sickle.

In the case where a child is put up for adoption without the consent of the parent, the biological family loses all legal connections and rights to their child. This goes against the advice of research and the Human Rights Court, lawyer Martin Olsgaard says.

Not all children live in a happy home. Sometimes, their situation calls for intervention from the authorities. And in some cases, children are forcibly adopted and permanently removed from their biological families.

In Denmark, the number of latter cases is increasing, Kristeligt Dagblad writes. That means that more and more children lose ties and contact with their biological families.

And that is a bad thing, lawyer Olsgaard believes. For his work, he often meets biological parents who cling to the hope that they can keep in touch with their child who was forcibly adopted. However, in reality, this hope is in vain, Olsgaard points out to Kristeligt Dagblad. All ties between biological children and their parents are severed.

That is very painful for the parents, he says. "Their children can get a new name and social security number", he explains. Also, the adoptive parents have the final say in the matter. "If they say no to contact with the biological family, there will be no contact." And this happens in many cases, the Minister of Social Affairs and Housing confirms.

Changes to the identity of South Korean adopted children were clearly illegal, says legal expert.

It was common knowledge for Danish adoption agencies that their South Korean partners changed the identities of infants before they were sent to their new families in Denmark.

This is shown by a new report from the Danish Appeals Board, which uncovers adoptions from South Korea to Denmark in the period through the 1970s and 80s.

Klaus Josefsen, who is an external lecturer at Aarhus University and an expert in administrative law, calls the report's conclusions too serious.

Analysis

INFO THE CROIX. It was to be presented on Tuesday January 23, but its publication was postponed. The report of the inspection mission on international adoption raises a lot of expectations and already a little frustration, according to the members of the National Adoption Council who were entitled to a summary of the document.

This is a long-awaited document... which is still long overdue. Submitted to the government “at the end of September or beginning of October” , the report on international adoption from the government inspection mission has still not been made public. Tuesday January 23, the text was to be presented to the National Adoption Council (CNA) by the three inspectors general who drafted it – justice, foreign affairs and social affairs – but the latter's visit was ultimately canceled. “With the reshuffle, there is no one to bring this file to the government. There is no longer a children's secretary, comments Marie-Christine Le Boursicot, specialist in adoption issues, honorary advisor to the Court of Cassation.

The broad outlines of the report were, however, presented on Tuesday to members of the CNA and associations, by its president, Monique Limon, but not the document itself. Suffice to say that this situation generated frustration within the audience and, in particular, among adopted...

Obtaining documents on international adoptions from 1974 to 1981.
Circumstances of the Korean government’s ‘connivance’ of illegal overseas adoptions.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs avoids responsibility for “private level issues”

On May 2, 1978, Belgian Consul Vanhove met with the Director of the Department for Women and Children of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs of the Republic of Korea and reported that Korean children were being traded illegally. Data National Archives of Korea
The Truth and Reconciliation Committee is conducting a large-scale investigation to reveal allegations of illegal acts by adoption agencies and collusion and condonation by the Korean government during the international adoption of Korean children in the 1970s and 1990s. , a document containing a conversation in the 1970s in which a foreign government protested the Korean government's practice of accepting money from adoption agencies in exchange for adoption and urged improvement was confirmed.

At the time, the Korean government remained ignorant, calling it a 'private level problem', but this document is evaluated as showing that the Korean government's 'connivance' was behind the spread of illegal overseas adoption.

According to documents related to 'international adoption of orphans' written by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1974 to 1981, obtained by the Hankyoreh from the National Archives on the 12th, the Belgian government at the time raised several issues surrounding the overseas adoption of Korean children, including the involvement of illegal brokers, but the Korean government turned a blind eye. Several circumstances are confirmed. The Belgian government became desperate and even requested a meeting with President Park Chung-hee.

“I advised the Korean ambassadors, but no action was taken.”
On May 1, 1978, Vanhove, the Belgian consul in Korea, met with the Director of the European Affairs Bureau of the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and said, “A Lebanese-born woman named Born , who was working in connection with the Holt Children’s Welfare Association, was 1. “Korean orphans are being sold (to Belgium) for 800 to 1,200 dollars per person,” he said, adding that he would meet President Park Chung-hee and tell him this because the matter was urgent. Until the late 1970s, Belgium was the country with the largest number of Korean children adopted, following the United States, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

 

The Belgian government appears to have taken this seriously because if money is exchanged in exchange for adoption, it can be considered child trafficking. Consul Vanhover told the Director of the European Bureau, “I met with the Director of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs last year and raised this issue, but I did not get any results. He strongly protested, saying, “I advised the Korean ambassador to Belgium to have the Korean government step in and stop (the broker’s intervention), but no action was taken.”

Suspicion of officials sharing adoption fees was also mentioned.
Adoption-related commissions were illegal under domestic law at the time. The Enforcement Decree of the Special Adoption Act, enacted in 1977, stipulates that 'an adoption agency may receive compensation for all or part of the costs incurred in adoption mediation from the prospective adoptive parents.' This means that only actual cost conservation is possible.

During the interview, Consul Vanhover also mentioned rumors in Belgium that high-ranking Korean government officials were sharing the adoption fee. There was pressure as to whether there was some kind of cartel between private companies and the government.

Director Koo Joo replied, “Please meet with the director of the Women’s and Children’s Bureau (Ministry of Health and Social Affairs), who is in charge, and talk about it.” However, on June 27, 1977, a year before this meeting, Consul Vanhover had already met with the Director of the Department for Women and Children of the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and complained with a similar point. As no further action was taken, the case went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, a year later, and was sent back to the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs.

The director of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Women’s and Children’s Bureau met with Consul Vanhover the next day and said, “The issue of orphan adoption is a private-level project. The Korean government is not involved. “If there are brokers taking commissions, that is a Belgian problem,” she replied.

 

My dear Family in India and America--I was thinking of my favorite Prakash Chitha (Uncle) on his Memorial Day—

I always loved his visits to my home as a little girl. Our house would suddenly become loud and jovial with his presence. He never came empty-handed—Always some type of gift for all the kids in the house. May have been as simple as a small 1-rupee treat.

He was an ambitious entrepreneur, a kind soul with a great sense of humor. I hope he looks down on us from heaven and remembers the wonderful memories he has created in each of us---I miss him very much!