South Korea pledges to end foreign adoptions

South Korea's government said it plans to end its waning foreign adoptions of Korean children, while United Nations investigators voiced "serious concern" over what they described as Seoul's failure to ensure truth-finding and reparations for widespread human rights violations tied to decades of mass overseas adoptions.

- BY KIM TONG-HYUNG

THE UNITED NATIONS seeks answers from South Korea about past abuses. Above, Health and Welfare Minister Lee Seu-ran speaks in Seoul this month.

(CHOO SANG-CHUL Newsis)

The announcement Friday came hours after the United Nations human rights office released South Korea's response to investigators urging Seoul to spell out concrete plans to address the grievances of adoptees sent abroad with falsified records or abused by foreign parents.

The issue had rarely been discussed at the U.N. level, even as South Korea faces growing pressure to confront widespread fraud and abuse that plagued its adoption program, particularly during a boom in the 1970s and 1980s when it annually sent thousands of children to the West.

The country will phase out foreign adoptions over a five-year period, aiming to reach zero by 2029 at the latest as it tightens welfare policies for children in need of care, Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Lee Seu-ran said during a briefing.

South Korea approved foreign adoptions of 24 children in 2025, down from about 2,000 in 2005 and an annual average of more than 6,000 during the 1980s.

In the Health Ministry's briefing and response to the U.N., officials focused on future improvements rather than past problems.

"Adoptions were mainly handled by private adoption agencies before, and while they presumably prioritized the best interests of the child, there may have also been other competing interests," Lee said.

"Now, with the adoption system being restructured into a public framework, and with the Health Ministry and the government having a larger role in the process for approving adoptions, we have an opportunity to reassess whether international adoption is truly a necessary option," she added, citing efforts to promote domestic adoptions.