Behind ‘South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning’

The FRONTLINE Dispatch

GBH

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 September 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the decades after the Korean war, around 200,000 children born in South Korea were adopted by families in Western countries. As adults, some of those adoptees have returned to South Korea to learn about their origins — only to discover that what they had been told wasn’t true.

A new documentary from FRONTLINE and The Associated Press, South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning, details the stories of adoptees and birth parents searching for answers, charts the history of foreign adoption out of South Korea, investigates allegations of wrongdoing including falsified papers and switched identities, and reveals the forces that helped to drive an unprecedented international adoption boom.

Together with director Lora Moftah, AP reporters Kim Tong-hyung and Claire Galofaro join The FRONTLINE Dispatch to talk about their investigation.

“Korea constantly tailored its policies and laws to meet the child demands of the West, while it was also trying to reduce the number of mouths to feed,” Kim says. “I think our reporting and the FRONTLINE documentary established that dynamic of supply and demand in a deeper way than the previous reports on the subject.”

Stream South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning on FRONTLINE’s website, FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel, or the PBS App. Read and listen to more accounts from Korean adoptees in the interactive story, “Who Am I, Then?: Stories from South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Since the 1950s, around 200,000 children from South Korea have been adopted by families in other countries.
0:10.0	I was adopted into France in 1980.
0:15.0	I was adopted.
0:17.0	I was adopted to Sweden.
0:20.0	I was adopted to the United States.
0:23.0	As adults, many adoptees have returned to South Korea in hopes at meeting their birth parents and learning about their origins.
0:30.0	But many have left with more questions and answers, and some have learned that they were not at all who they were told.
0:38.0	There were a lot of children brought to the states who might not have been orphans.
0:42.0	What do you do when you find out your origin story? not to the states who might not have been orphans.
0:42.8	What do you do when you find out your origin story
0:45.2	is marked with grievous injustice?
0:47.8	Reporters from the Associated Press
0:49.8	have been investigating allegations of wrongdoing in South Korea's adoption
0:53.9	system. This is a summary of a meeting between the government and the head of
0:58.8	the adoption agencies. Do you know what this meeting was? South Korea's adoption reckoning is a new documentary from Frontline and the Associated Press.
1:08.3	The team behind the film joins me today, reporters Tongyong Kim and Claire Galafaro from the Associated Press and director
1:16.2	Laura Mofta.
1:19.9	I'm Rainier and Sir Roth, editor-in-chief and executive producer of Frontline, and this is the Frontline Dispatch is made possible by the Abrams Foundation committed to excellence in journalism and by the Frontline Journalism Fund with major support from John and Joanne
1:44.7	Hagler. Support for Frontline Dispatch comes from Mass General Brigham, dedicated
1:49.1	to building a world-class center of cancer care. With the most cancer surgeries
1:52.3	and specialists in New England,
1:53.7	they're committed to being with patients for every twist and turn. Learn more at
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