SEOUL, South Korea (AP) \u2014 A 52-year-old woman who was adopted to a French family in 1984 without her biological parents\u2019 consent has filed for compensation from South Korea\u2019s government, citing how authorities at the time fraudulently documented her as an orphan although she had a family.<\/p>\n
The rare petition filed by Yooree Kim<\/a> came months after South Korea\u2019s truth commission<\/a> recognized her and 55 other adoptees as victims of human rights violations, including falsified child origins, lost records and child protection failures. <\/p>\n Her case was highlighted last year in an Associated Press investigation<\/a> in collaboration with FRONTLINE (PBS)<\/a>. The investigation found that South Korea\u2019s government, Western countries and adoption agencies worked in tandem for decades to supply some 200,000 Korean children to parents overseas through questionable or downright unscrupulous means. <\/p>\n Their stories have triggered a reckoning that has shaken the international adoption industry, which took root in South Korea before spreading worldwide. Under pressure from adoptees, the Seoul government launched a fact-finding investigation, and hundreds submitted their cases for review.<\/p>\n Choi Jung Kyu, Kim\u2019s lawyer, said her administrative claim, filed under a little-used provision of the state compensation act, would be groundbreaking if successful. He said it could set a precedent for others to seek compensation without enduring long, difficult lawsuits<\/a> against the state that seldom succeed.<\/p>\n Whatever the outcome, it is being watched as a gauge of how the government assesses its responsibility for the dubious practices which marred South Korea\u2019s adoption program, one which peaked in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n The government faces calls to take responsibility<\/p>\n The government has never acknowledged direct responsibility for past adoption practices and has yet to act on recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. <\/p>\n After a nearly three-year investigation, the commission concluded in March that the state bears responsibility for facilitating an adoption program rife with fraud and abuse, driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs. It urged the government to issue an apology and develop plans to address adoptees\u2019 grievances.<\/p>\n The Justice Ministry technically has four weeks to decide on Kim\u2019s request, but nothing requires it to meet that deadline. Her petition, filed on Aug. 21, does not specify an amount, leaving it to the government to propose an appropriate sum. She also reserves the right to potentially pursue a civil lawsuit against the state, Choi said.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can we ever even start to quantify the damages she endured?\u201d Choi said.<\/p>\n Kim told the AP on Wednesday that her adoption, recognized by the commission as illegal, amounted to \u201ckidnapping and forced disappearance.\u201d South Korea committed the \u201cbiggest part of the crime,\u201d she said, because it endorsed \u201cproxy\u201d adoptions to Western parents who never visited South Korea.<\/p>\n It was, she said, \u201ca child sale sponsored by the state.\u201d<\/p>\n Excruciating memories <\/p>\n Kim was 11 when she and her younger brother were sent by Holt Children\u2019s Services, a Korean adoption agency, to a couple in France.<\/p>\n Following a divorce, Kim\u2019s impoverished mother placed the children in an orphanage so at least they could eat, a common practice at the time. She says she never consented to their adoption and only discovered it after returning to the orphanage to find them gone. Kim\u2019s father also said he never knew his children were being put up for adoption and never gave his consent.<\/p>\n Kim recalls being physically, verbally, and sexually abused in her adoptive home, allegations her parents denied. A judge dismissed a complaint she filed against her adoptive father for insufficient evidence. <\/p>\n Kim first returned to South Korea in 1994 but for years resented her birth parents, believing they were in denial about giving up their children. That changed in 2022 when she confirmed through residential records that she and her brother were still registered under their father and had never been relinquished, a discovery that drove her to seek accountability from governments and adoption agencies in South Korea and France.<\/p>\n Kim\u2019s adoption paperwork contains conflicting stories of how she and her brother were made eligible for adoption. <\/p>\n One said they were relinquished by their paternal great-aunt, whom Kim never recalls meeting. Another document says Kim\u2019s mother agreed to the adoption. A third says the siblings were found \u201croaming\u201d the streets and were \u201cemotionally hardened\u201d by the experience. <\/p>\n The discrepancies constructed a false chain of guardianship that enabled the adoptions, with the orphanage transferring parental rights it never rightfully possessed to Holt, which then placed the siblings with the French adopters. <\/p>\n Kim\u2019s adoption was clearly unlawful, given the lack of consent from her parents who were easily identifiable, Choi said. None of Kim\u2019s records indicate any effort to contact her parents. Kim\u2019s petition also cites screening failures related to her adoptive parents. Her adoptive father was 50 when he received the siblings, above the age limit of 45 set at the time by South Korean authorities.<\/p>\n Holt has not responded to repeated requests to comment on Kim\u2019s case. <\/p>\n Difficult legal battles <\/p>\n