A recent report by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Korea has shed light on disturbing practices that took place in government-funded facilities from the 1960s to the 1980s. The commission found evidence that women were coerced into giving up their infants for foreign adoptions after giving birth at these facilities, where thousands of individuals were confined and enslaved.
The largest facility, Brothers Home, was exposed for its involvement in shipping children abroad as part of a profit-driven enterprise that exploited thousands of people trapped within its compound in Busan. Many children and adults, some abducted from the streets, were enslaved in these facilities and subjected to heinous acts such as rape, beatings, and even murder during the 1970s and 1980s.
The commission's investigation focused on four similar facilities in Seoul, Daegu, South Chungcheong, and Gyeonggi. These facilities were operated to support government initiatives aimed at 'beautifying' the streets through roundups of individuals.
Records from the facilities revealed that at least 20 adoptions occurred from Daegu's Huimangwon and South Chungcheong province's Cheonseongwon in 1985 and 1986, coinciding with South Korea's peak in foreign adoptions. Newborns taken from these facilities were transferred to adoption agencies like Holt Children's Services and Eastern Social Welfare Society, which then placed them with families in the United States, Denmark, Norway, and Australia.
While some records indicated that women willingly consented to giving up their children, others suggested that they were pressured to do so. The commission highlighted instances where women were coerced into relinquishing their infants, raising concerns about the lack of genuine consent in these adoptions.
The report also uncovered high death tolls at the facilities, with alarming practices such as providing deceased inmates' bodies to medical schools for anatomy practice. The commission identified a 'revolving-door' labor-sharing scheme between facilities, indicating a profit-driven motive that prolonged inmates' confinements.
South Korea's transition to democracy in the late 1980s marked the end of such egregious practices, with the closure of Brothers Home in 1988 following public exposure of its atrocities. The commission's findings have brought to light the long-concealed human rights violations at these facilities, prompting calls for accountability and justice.
As South Korea grapples with its past, the commission continues its investigations into cases of Korean adoptees abroad who suspect their biological origins were manipulated to facilitate adoptions. The quest for truth and reconciliation remains ongoing as the country confronts its dark history and strives to ensure such injustices are never repeated.
