Copenhagen, Denmark has suspended all international adoptions following accusations of thousands of illegal adoptions
At the start of 2024, a report shook Denmark. It shows that the country’s adoption agencies knew that their South Korean partners sometimes changed the identities of adopted children in the 1970s and 1980s. All international adoptions were suspended in the country.
The scandal was initially publicized more than 10,000 kilometers away. The “Truth Commission” was created in South Korea to look into alleged illegal adoptions.
Since the 1950s, more than 250,000 Koreans have been adopted abroad, including 9,000 by Danes. A report from the Danish Social Affairs Monitoring Agency, published in early 2024, shows that adoption agencies, operating under state control, knew that their South Korean partners could change the identities of children in 1970s and 1980s.
According to journalistic investigations, 54 million crowns ($8 million) were paid to facilitate adoptions. The DKRG association (Danish Korean Right Group) evokes hundreds of files containing falsified documents, invented dates or testifying to children arriving in Denmark six centimeters shorter than when they left Korea.
At the same time, Denmark suspended all international adoptions in mid-January. The only operating agency closed definitively, following revelations about the existence of financial compensation or fraudulently acquired consent, not only in South Korea, but also in India, Madagascar and South Africa.
Jeremie Tillon
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