The international adoption of South Korean children () started around 1953 as a measure to take care of the large number of mixed children that became orphaned during and after the Korean War. It quickly evolved to include orphaned Korean children. Religious organizations in the United States, Australia, and many Western European nations slowly developed the apparatus that sustained international adoption as a socially integrated system.
From the 1970s through the 2000s, thousands of children were adopted overseas every year. Over time, the South Korean government has sought to decrease international adoptions in favor of domestic adoptions. In 2023, seventy years after its start, South Korea still sent 79 children overseas, making it the longest-running international adoption program in the world.
Korean War and Holt Korean War
While Amerasians came to constitute fewer than one percent of Korean adoptees by 1988, during the decade after the Korean War, most Korean adoptees were Amerasians who were fathered by American soldiers.
Of 6,293 Koreans were adopted in the United States between 1955 and 1966, of whom about 46% were white and Korean mixed, 41% were fully Korean, and the rest were African-American and Korean mixed.Gaw, A. C. (1993). Culture, Ethnicity & Mental Illness. Washington, D.C. & London, England: American Psychiatric Press. p. 352. The first wave of adoptees from Korea were usually mixed-race children whose families lived in poverty; the children's parents were often American military men and Korean women.
The ethnic makeup of these children contributed to the will for international adoption. There was a push to remove mixed-race "G.I. babies" from the population. Korean ideas about racial purity and the importance of patrilineal descent led American-fathered children to be viewed as not truly Korean.Tong, Traci (2015). "How South Korea became the first country to start international adoptions". Public Radio International. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
Holt The start of adoption in South Korea is usually credited to Harry Holt in 1955.Liem, Deann Borshay (2000). "Adoption History - First Person Plural - POV". PBS. Retrieved March 22, 2017. Harry Holt wanted to help the children of South Korea, so Holt adopted eight children from South Korea and brought them home. In part due to the response that Holt got after adopting these eight children from the nationwide press coverage, Holt started Holt International Children's Services, which is an adoption agency based in the United States which specialized in finding families for Korean children.
Touched by the fate of the orphans, Western religious groups as well as other associations started the process of placing children in homes in the United States and Europe. The first Korean babies sent to Europe went to Sweden via the Social Welfare Society in the mid-1960s. By the end of that decade, the Holt International Children's Services began sending Korean orphans to Norway, Denmark, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Germany.
Media coverage of adoption South Korean media coverage In 1988, when South Korea hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics, the international adoption of South Korean children became the focus of global attention, and the issue became a source of national humiliation for South Korea. Politicians claimed that they would try to stop "child exports", so they set an intended end date and a quota for international adoptions. However, the quota has been exceeded several times, and the intended end date has been extended several times.
Not until the 1980s and early 1990s did the South Korean government and South Koreans, both in South Korea and in the diaspora, pay any significant attention to the fates of Korean adoptees. The nation was not prepared for the return of their 'lost children.' But the numerous adult Korean adoptees who visited Korea as tourists every year, in addition to raising public awareness of the Korean adoptee diaspora, forced Korea to face a shameful and largely unknown part of their history. South Korean president Kim Dae-jung invited 29 adult Korean adoptees from 8 countries to a personal meeting in the Blue House in October 1998. During this meeting he publicly apologized for South Korea's inability to raise them.Kim, Dae-Jung, "President Kim Dae Jung's Speech: October 23, 1998 at the Blue House", in Chosen Child, vol 1, no 5, May 1999: 15–16
Since then, South Korean media rather frequently reports on the issues regarding international adoption. Most Korean adoptees have taken on the citizenship of their adoptive country and no longer have Korean passports. Earlier they had to get a visa like any other foreigner if they wanted to visit or live in South Korea. This only added to the feeling that they were "not really South Korean". In May 1999, a group of Korean adoptees living in Korea started a signature-collection in order to achieve legal recognition and acceptance (Schuhmacher, 1999). In 2009, the number of Korean adoptees long-term residents in South Korea (mainly Seoul) is estimated at 500. It is not unlikely that this number will increase in the following decade (International adoption from South Korea peaked in the mid-1980s). A report from Global Overseas Adoptees' Link (G.O.A.'L) indicates that the long term returnees (more than one year) are predominantly in their early twenties or early thirties.
One factor that helped make the subject of Korean adoptees part of the South Korean discourse was a 1991 film called Susanne Brink's Arirang which was a film about the life story of a Korean adoptee who grew up in Sweden. This film made the subject of the international adoptions of Korean children a hot topic in South Korea, and it made South Koreans feel shame and guilt regarding the issue.
A 1997 article in The Christian Science Monitor said that Koreans in South Korea often believed that adoptive families in other countries had ulterior motives for adopting Korean orphans due to the Korean belief that parents can not love a child who is not their biological child.Baker, Michael. (1997). "South Korea struggles to free itself from adoption stigma". The Christian Science Monitor. .
North Korean media coverage In 1988, the Director General of South Korea's Bureau of Family Affairs in the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs said that the large number of international adoptions out of South Korea had been an issue used as part of North Korea's propaganda against South Korea in the 1970s. North Korea, which did not allow for international adoptions, accused South Korea of selling its children. The Director General wanted to decrease the rate of international adoption, so North Korea could no longer exploit the issue..
The 1988 article was serialized by The People's Korea, a pro-North Korea magazine, and the resulting publicity caused South Korea to have the image in the North as the number one child-exporting country of the world: The Pyongyang Times, a North Korean newspaper, printed: "The traitors of South Korea, old hands at treacheries, are selling thousands, tens of thousands of children going ragged and hungry to foreign marauders under the name of 'adopted children'."Hübinette, T. (2003). "North Korea and adoption". p. 4. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
United States media coverage A 2019 documentary, Geographies of Kinship, was written by a Korean adoptee (Deanna Borshay Liem) and tells the story of international adoption from the perspective of an adoptee.
PBS Frontline created a documentary exposé about South Korean adoption practices on 20 September 2024, soon before the South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRCK) published that South Korea owed Korean adoptees an apology on 25 March 2025. PBS Frontline added several articles to confirm the facts in the documentary. The TRCK report also mentioned Brothers Home. Other articles from before the documentary confirm the facts in the documentary and report.
Korean patrilineal blood culture
South Korea has a patrilineal culture that places importance on blood relation. As a result, domestic adoption is rare, because the adoptee would not be seen as a true relative. South Koreans who do adopt domestically typically adopt Korean girls to avoid issues involving ancestral family rites performed by bloodline sons, as well as inheritance.
This patrilineal culture also contributes to stigma and discrimination against unwed Korean mothers and their kids, limiting the mother's career and marital prospects. This social stigma applies not only to the unwed mother and her children, but also to her whole extended family, causing a child who was born out of wedlock to suffer lowered marital, job and educational prospects in South Korea."Unmarried Mothers in Korea". Korea 4 Expats. Retrieved November 7, 2016. Additionally, Korean adoptees suffer a social stigma in South Korea, because Korean adoptees have been "cut loose from their bloodlines".Haruch, Steve. (2014). "In Korea, Adoptees Fight To Change Culture That Sent Them Overseas". NPR. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
"Koreanness" is seen as passing from parent (particularly father) to child as long as the parents have "pure" Korean blood, hence continuing the bloodline. A Korean family's lineage represents the official recording of their blood purity. Due to this conception of identity along blood lines and race, returning Korean adoptees are seen to still be Korean, even if they cannot speak the language. However, despite the importance of bloodline, a Korean physical appearance is often considered the most important consideration when identifying other people as being Koreans. Other considerations also impact the perceived legitimacy of one's Korean identity; for example, Korean women who had sex with non-Korean men are often not considered to be "Korean" in the "full-fledged" sense.Gage, S. L. (2007). Pure Mixed Blood: The Multiple Identities of Amerasians in South Korea. pp. 55, 56, 61 & 81. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
In a study of Korean adoptees reunited with their birth families, anthropologist Elise Prebin found that the relationships developed between adoptees and their birth families are generally more secure and are easier maintained along the birth father's line than along the birth mother's line. The study found that this demonstrated the continued importance and influence of patrilineal kinship ideologies in South Korea.Kim, Eleana (2012). "Human Capital: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Neoliberal Logic of Return". Sorensen, Clark W.; Baker, Donald, eds. The Journal of Korean Studies 17(2). p. 321. Retrieved March 28, 2016.
Economics Costs saved by South Korea A 1988 article estimated that the South Korean government made fifteen to twenty million dollars per year by the adoption of Korean orphans by families in other countries. The adoption of Korean orphans out of South Korea was reported to have three more indirect economic effects: it saved the South Korean government the costs of caring for the Korean orphans, it relieved the South Korean government of the need to figure out what to do with the orphans, and it lowered the population.
Some academics and researchers claim that the system for orphans Korean adoption agencies have established guarantee a steady supply of healthy children. Supporters of the system claim that adoption agencies are only caring for infants who would otherwise go homeless or be institutionalized.