In the 1970s and 80s, South Korea tried to send babies abroad due to the rampant demand for them in Western countries. Due to rising access to birth control and abortion in Europe and the US, the amount of adoptable children lowered drastically, causing families to want to adopt. But recently, it has been discovered that the governments of these states were turning a blind eye to South Korean babies being possibly stolen, being reported missing or dead when they were actually given to a family across the world. As a result, many countries in Europe, including the Netherlands and Switzerland among others, have since been investigating. Several more have made statements on the topic. France’s government admits after being accused that they had long known about “the existence of illicit practices of a systemic nature”. America especially had taken in children, some officials not knowing of the babies even being stolen.
Countries have already started responding to this issue, however many could crack down further on the investigation of the illicit adoptions. France in particular made its admittance 40-50 years after the adoption crisis first occurred. South Korea also made this decision knowingly, kidnapping young children and infants in order to send them to families abroad. Recently, of course, investigations have opened up, but they are happening far too late and these governments must be held accountable. Children who were sent away from Korea are now demanding they know more details of where they came from, and the circumstances of their adoption.
Now that the illegitimate nature of these adoptions have come to light, more Western countries could conduct deeper investigations. While these adoptions happened as far back as 50 years ago, many of the children kidnapped by South Korean officials are still living, meaning that there are plenty of like-minded people demanding answers. Due to this pushback, it may be in these countries’ best interests to conduct further investigations, especially in the United States where officials weren’t aware of the situation. In class recently, we have been discussing global hierarchy, and also what causes international events to occur. Using levels of analysis, at the global level this situation occurred because of the rise of birth control in Western countries. Diving a little deeper, at the interstate level, there was a high demand for adopted children, particularly South Korean children, in other states. From a domestic standpoint, South Korea used this demand as a justification for kidnapping children. And finally, at an individual level, the people behind this scandal thought it was worth it to take infants and young children away from their families, so long as it would satisfy the Western states’ demand for adoptions.