The children abandoned by South Korea’s adoption policy
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 18 August 2025
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The world’s largest diaspora of international adoptees comes from South Korea. Among them are mixed-race children who were forcibly sent for adoption due to the country’s racist laws. One Black adoptee’s search for a home reflects hard truths about the past of hundreds of thousands of international adoptees.
This is a story from the archives. This originally aired on September 25 2024. None of the dates, titles or other references from that time have been changed.
In this episode:
- Anna Kook (@annakook), AJ+ Reporter
This episode was produced by Amy Walters and Sarí el-Khalili, with Khaled Soltan, Chloe K. Li, Duha Mosaad, Sonia Bhagat, Phillip Lanos, Hisham Abu Salah, and our host, Malika Bilal. It was edited by Alexandra Locke.
The Take production team is Marcos Bartolomé, Sonia Bhagat, Spencer Cline, Sarí el-Khalili, Diana Ferrero, Tracie Hunte, Tamara Khandaker, Kylene Kiang, Phillip Lanos, Chloe K. Li, Melanie Marich, Catherine Nouhan, Amy Walters, and Noor Wazwaz. Our editorial interns are Farhan Rafid, and Kisaa Zehra. Our host is Malika Bilal.
Our engagement producers are Adam Abou-Gad and Vienna Maglio. Aya Elmileik is lead of audience engagement.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editors are Hisham Abu Salah and Mohannad al-Melhem. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today we're revisiting a powerful episode from the archives, one that's just as relevant. |
| 0:12.8 | Hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:15.0 | Today, falsified adoption records and a hidden legacy of war in South Korea. |
| 0:25.0 | It's the sickest thing that you can do to a person, of course, taking away his family, |
| 0:32.7 | his relatives, his roots. |
| 0:35.4 | What one black adoptee hopes to find, and what that means for hundreds of thousands of |
| 0:40.6 | other Korean adoptees. |
| 0:44.3 | I'm Malika Bilal, and this is the take. |
| 0:53.8 | My name is Anna Cook. I am a field producer with AJ Plus Reports. And I am based in New York City, but I was in Korea last year to film two special stories in South Korea. |
| 1:07.5 | Anna, it's really good to have you here on the take. You spent about a month reporting in South Korea, and while you were there, you got to know |
| 1:15.0 | a man named Simone. |
| 1:17.3 | His roots are in Korea, but he's from the Netherlands. |
| 1:20.9 | I'm Simon Hogweda. |
| 1:23.1 | I'm from the Netherlands. |
| 1:24.6 | I was born as Kim Quonsi. |
| 1:26.7 | My birthplace, I'm not sure where it was because it's demolished. |
| 1:31.0 | And it could be right behind me or it could be in front of me. |
| 1:37.2 | You joined him in investigating a mystery about how that came to be and you made it into a documentary. |
| 1:43.5 | So tell me about this mystery and |
| 1:46.8 | tell me about Simone. |
| 1:50.7 | So I met Simone in October of 2023 last year in South Korea because he was searching for his |
| 1:58.7 | birth mother, and he had returned to South Korea after more than 50 |
... |
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