South Korea now faces mounting legal and diplomatic fallout following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) confirmation of systemic rights violations in its overseas adoption practices.

In findings released on March 26, the TRC concluded that the South Korean state and adoption agencies routinely falsified records, coerced or misled birth parents, substituted children’s identities and neglected basic protections in order to expedite international adoptions.

These abuses reframed intercountry adoption not as an altruistic project but as a transnational human rights concern. The TRC’s report implicates the South Korean state and 11 countries, and its conclusions have emboldened adoptees seeking justice.