Activist Blasts Falsification of Adoptee Birth Records

"Both my birthday and hometown in Korea turned out to be false. I heard that my mother abandoned me shortly after birth and that my parents had no chance to live together after my father sent me to an orphanage. These stories were also false. Can you imagine how much pain the fabrication of adoption documents gives to adopted Korean children?”

Jane Jeong Trenka, 37, a Korean adoptee who grew up in the U.S. state of Minnesota, said this yesterday to a parliamentary hearing on the revision to an adoption law.

Urging an end to what she called “child laundering,” she said, “Family registers of many adoptees were fabricated,” adding, “Because of this, only 2.7 percent of adopted Korean children meet their biological parents.”

An original document stored at an adoption agency said she was in poor condition at the time of adoption because her father gave her up in rage. The document given to her adoptive American parents, however, said she was perfectly healthy and had a good upbringing in Korea.

“In many cases, the birthdays of adopted Korean children are recorded differently from what their mothers say,” Trenka said. “Adoption agencies should be banned from fabricating the personal information of adoptees.”

She also filed a complaint about such problems with a government commission on resolving the suffering of the people last year.

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