A 70-year-old South Korean woman sued her government, an adoption agency and an orphanage Monday over the adoption of her daughter, who was sent to the United States in 1976, months after she was kidnapped at age four.
It’s the first known case of a Korean birth parent suing the government and an adoption agency for damages over the wrongful adoption of their child, said Kim Soo-jung, one of the lawyers representing Han Tae-soon.
The damage suit filed by Han, whose story was part of an Associated Press investigation published last month, could ignite further debate on the dubious child-gathering practices and widespread falsification of paperwork that tarnished South Korea’s adoption program, which annually sent thousands of kids to the West during the 1970 and ’80s.
Last year, CBC produced the results of its lengthy investigation into a dark chapter in Korean-Canadian relations. CBC uncovered that federal and provincial governments in Canada knew of red flags and contradictory adoption paperwork as early as the 1970s, but calls for a full-scale investigation into Korean adoptions were ignored.
It’s estimated about 3,000 so-called Korean orphans were adopted in Canada from those origins.
Like many Korean-Canadian adoptees, Mi Hwa Taylor grew up believing she was an orphan. But after seeing a CBC News report exposing falsified adoption records, she reached out to share her story of learning the truth about her own adoption.
Reunited, but unable to communicate
Han searched for her daughter, Laurie Bender, for more than 40 years before they reunited through DNA testing in 2019. Speaking to reporters in front of the Seoul Central District Court, Han argued that the South Korean government was responsible for failing to prevent the adoption of Bender.
Han had reported to police that her daughter was missing and desperately searched for her, frequently visiting police stations, government offices and adoption agencies and even going on Korean media. She had her daughter’s picture displayed everywhere — in subway stations, on lamp posts and on bags of snacks that advertised missing children.
Han accuses Holt Children’s Services, South Korea’s biggest adoption agency, of facilitating Bender’s adoption without checking her background. Her lawyers said the Jechon Children’s Home made no effort to find the parents after Bender was placed at the facility by police in May 1975, a day after Han reported her as missing.
In her adoption papers, Bender, named Shin Gyeong-ha at birth, is described as an abandoned orphan with no known parents. Under a new Korean name made by the orphanage, Baik Kyong Hwa, she was sent to the United States in February 1976.
“For 44 years, I wandered and searched for my child, but the joy of meeting her was only momentary and now I am in so much pain because we can’t communicate in the same language,” Han said, fighting back tears.
“I want the government and Holt to explain to us how this happened,” she added.
Kim, the lawyer, said the government is at fault for the botched child search that led to Bender’s adoption, saying she could have easily been found if missing child information was properly shared between police stations, or if officers had tried to search orphanages.
The lawsuit lists Han, her husband and two of her younger children as plaintiffs, but not Bender, Jeon said. Han is seeking about 600 million won ($605,885 Cdn) in damages.
South Korea’s Justice Ministry, which represents the government in lawsuits, said in a statement to the AP that it wouldn’t comment on an active legal case. Holt didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Genealogy site sparks reunions
In an earlier interview with the AP, Bender said she was approached by a strange woman while playing near her home in the city of Cheongju. She remembers the woman saying her family didn’t want her anymore because Han had another baby. Distraught, Bender went with the woman, but was then abandoned in Jechon, a city 80 kilometres away.
After failing to find her daughter for four decades, Han registered her DNA with a nonprofit group called 325 Kamra, which helps Korean adoptees reunite with their families through genetic information. For her part, Bender took a DNA test because her own daughter was curious about their heritage and 325 Kamra.
Just weeks after finding her mother, Bender and her daughter flew to Korea to meet Han. Recognizing Bender immediately, Han ran to her, screaming, moaning, running her fingers through Bender’s hair.
“It’s like a hole in your heart has been healed, you finally feel like a complete person,” Bender said. “It’s like you’ve been living a fake life and everything you know is not true.”
The AP investigation, which was also documented by Frontline (PBS), described how the South Korean government, Western nations and adoption agencies worked in tandem to place around 200,000 Korean children overseas, despite years of evidence that children were being procured through dubious or dishonest means. Western nations ignored the problems amid a focus on satisfying huge domestic demand for babies.
In 2019, Adam Crapser became the first Korean adoptee to sue the South Korean government and an adoption agency for damages, accusing them of mishandling his adoption to the United States, where he faced legal troubles after surviving an abusive childhood before being deported in 2016.
After four years of hearings, the Seoul Central District Court last year ordered Crapser’s adoption agency, Holt, to pay him 100 million won ($100,000 Cdn) in damages for failing to inform his adopters they needed to take separate steps to obtain his citizenship after his adoption was approved by a state court.
However, the court dismissed Crapser’s accusations against the Korean government over alleged monitoring and due diligence failures. The case is now with the Seoul High Court after both Crapser and Holt appealed.
