The Orphan Market · Episode 10 of 10 · 50 min
The Adoptees Answer Back, and What Comes Next (Finale)
Adult international adoptees, now scholars, lawyers, and organizers, have reframed their adoptions as a Cold War welfare shortcut and a transnational market in children, with falsified paperwork and a citizenship gap that left some deported. With origin countries closing the pipeline and Korea's truth commission admitting state-facilitated child trade, the question is what is owed to the children still in institutions.
Who's who
- Eleana J. KimAnthropologist at UC Irvine; author of Adopted Territory
- Kim Park NelsonAdoptee scholar and critic of the rescue framing
- Deann Borshay LiemAdoptee filmmaker; director of First Person Plural
- Park Sun Young+1 more episodeChaired South Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
- Sang Hoon Lee+1 more episodeCommission investigator who called its report "half-baked"
- Adam Smith+2 more episodesU.S. representative; sponsor of citizenship-fix legislation
- Don BaconU.S. representative; sponsor of citizenship-fix legislation
- Mazie HironoU.S. senator; sponsor of citizenship-fix legislation
Where it happens
- Seoul, South Korea+1 more episodeSite of the truth commission and a 2025 court ruling clearing the government
- Chile+2 more episodesWhere families reunited with children stolen since the 1960s
- Ethiopia+1 more episodeBanned intercountry adoption in 2018; reunions of families continue
- United States+16 more episodesLargest recipient country; citizenship gap affects older adoptees
Timeline
- 2010Eleana Kim's Adopted Territory crystallizes the adoptee critique and Critical Adoption Studies.
- 2022South Korea's truth commission opens its investigation of 367 adoptee complaints.
- January 8, 2025A Seoul court overturns a damages award and clears Korea and Holt International.
- March 26, 2025The commission's interim report finds the state responsible; 56 of 367 cases confirmed.
- April 2025The commission suspends remaining cases amid a dispute over the evidentiary standard.
- September 18, 2025The Protect Adoptees and American Families Act is introduced in Congress.
Still debated
Adoptees disagree among themselves about abolition versus reform, and the truth commission split over whether adoptees must prove intentional falsification. Advocates also debate whether a total shutdown leaves children who truly cannot be reunified worse off in institutions.
