South Korea to End Foreign Adoptions by 2029
Is South Korea's adoption ban evading accountability for past abuses, or finally prioritizing children's rights and protection?
Above: Korean adoptee Kara Bos speaking during an interview with AFP at KoRoot, a guest house and a rights group for Korean-born adoptees, in Seoul on June 10, 2020. Image credit: JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty Images
The Spin
Pro-government narrative
Ending foreign adoptions by 2029 represents a historic shift toward state accountability and child protection. Transferring oversight from profit-driven private agencies to government control ensures children's best interests come first, while expanded domestic support and ratification of the Hague Convention finally address past failures.
Government-critical narrative
South Korea's decision to end foreign adoptions by 2029 rings hollow when the government refuses to confront decades of systematic human rights abuses. U.N. investigators rightly condemned Seoul for denying adoptees access to truth and reparations while suspending fact-finding investigations despite evidence of enforced disappearances and falsified records that destroyed families.