Danish report underscores ‘systematic illegal behavior’ in adoptions of children from South Korea

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A Danish report on Thursday said that adoptions of children from South Korea to Denmark in the 1970s and 1980s was “characterized by systematic illegal behavior” in the Asian country.

These violations, the report said, made it “possible to change information about a child’s background and adopt a child without the knowledge of the biological parents.”

The report was the latest in a dark chapter of international adoptions. In 2013, the government in Seoul started requiring foreign adoptions to go through family courts. The move ended the decadeslong policy of allowing private agencies to dictate child relinquishments, transfer of custodies and emigration.

The Danish Appeals Board, which supervises international adoptions, said there was “an unfortunate incentive structure where large sums of money were transferred between the Danish and South Korean organizations” over the adoptions.

The 129-page report, published by an agency under Denmark’s ministry of social affairs, focused on the period from Jan. 1, 1970 to Dec. 31, 1989.

A total of 7,220 adoptions were carried out from South Korea to Denmark during the two decades.

The report based it findings on 60 cases from the three privately run agencies in Denmark — DanAdopt, AC Boernehjaelp and Terres des Hommes — that handled adoptions from South Korea. The first two merged to become Danish International Adoption while the third agency closed its adoptions in 1999.

The agency wrote that two of the agencies — DanAdopt and AC Boernehjaelp — “were aware of this practice” of changing information about the child’s background.

The report was made after a number of issues raised by the organization Danish Korean Rights Group. In 2022, Peter Møller, the