Lee sorry for overseas adoptions

South Korea's president apologised yesterday for the first time over state-sanctioned malpractices in sending tens of thousands of children overseas for adoption, saying “unjust human rights violations” were committed.

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An official enquiry held the government accountable earlier this year for facilitating adoptions through fraudulent practices, including falsifying documents and switching identities.

The country, now Asia’s fourth-largest economy and a global cultural powerhouse, was for decades one of the world’s biggest exporters of children, having sent more than 140,000 overseas for adoption between 1955 and 1999.