SEOUL - Decades after she was sent for adoption in the United States, Kara Bos’ quest to find her birth parents in South Korea moved a step closer on Friday when a Seoul court ruled that a South Korean man was her biological father.
The ruling is the first of its kind in South Korea, which Amnesty International once dubbed the “longest and largest supplier of international adoptees”.
It sets the stage for potentially thousands of other adoptees to be officially registered as children of their birth parents, with implications for inheritance and citizenship laws.
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While laws vary widely from country to country, many jurisdictions are providing more information to adopted children about their biological parents. Advocates say South Korea’s policies remain relatively restrictive.
Bos, whose birth name is Kang Mee-sook, broke into tears as she left the courtroom. Removing a medical mask, she said in Korean: “Mom. Can you recognise my face? Please come to me.”
Bos is one of more than 200, 000 Korean children adopted overseas in the past 60 years, and her struggle to identify her parents highlights the challenges for many adoptees, said Rev. Do-hyun Kim, who heads KoRoot, a charity that works with adoptees.
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“I think Kara’s journey, Kara’s fight, is meaningful because it reminds us that parents, society, and the state itself has public responsibility to clearly inform a child born in South Korean society about their roots, ” he said.
The ruling officially registers Bos as the child of a man who, according to a DNA test ordered by the court earlier this year, is 99.9981% likely her biological father.
That designation could entitle Bos to inheritance. The ruling could also lead to more adoptees with limited or no records to apply for South Korea citizenship, according to the Justice Ministry.
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Bos said with the positive paternity test and the court ruling, the family finally agreed she could meet her father as soon as next week.
In 1983, a two-year-old Bos was found abandoned in a market south of Seoul. Less than a year later, she was adopted by an American family.
Bos, who now lives in the Netherlands with her Dutch husband, knew from childhood she was adopted. Her search for her biological parents only began after the birth of her own daughter, who made Bos realize what it would mean to abandon a child at that age.
A Single Square Picture: A Korean Adoptee's Search For Her Roots: Robinson, Katy: 9780425184967: Amazon.com: Books
“At that point I realized that there is trauma involved in adoption, and it is much more complex than the saviour story, ” Bos said.
After several years of searching archives in South Korea, a break came in 2016 when a genealogy website matched her to a young South Korean man, whose grandfather was found to be Bos’ biological father.
Bos said she took the case to court after exhausting all other ways of trying to speak to him and his family to find out about her mother.
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Bos said she would not sign away any rights to inheritance but her primary goal was to speak to her father and eventually identify her mother.*While this website is mostly geared toward Adoptees who were adopted through the Korean Adoption Agency Korea Social Service (KSS), there is also information here which is relevant to ALL Korean Adoptees, regardless of their Korean Adoption Agency. Please read carefully to note what info. is purely relevant to KSS Adoptees and what is generally relevant to ALL Korean Adoptees.
Birth Family Search can often feel overwhelming, and it can often feel as though we have to ask everyone else for help and that we are powerless.
Tip 1A: When In Korea, Be Sure To Visit Local Community Centers (주민센터) Close To Your City / Area of Birth and Ask For Your Family Registry (호적). It is possible that you had a REAL Korean name and that your Korean birth parents put you on their family registry.
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Many Korean Adoptees assume that their Korean name was made up by their Korean Adoption Agency. However, it is possible that you had a REAL Korean name and that your Korean birth parents put you on their family registry. The only way to find out is to take your adoption file and visit local community centers (주민센터) close to your city / area of birth and ask for your family registry (호적), based on the Korean name in your adoption file.
The Korean Adoption Agencies had to make us legally adoptable (which is why so many of us were told in our English adoption paperwork that we were “abandoned” with “unknown birth parents”, so that we could match the Western definition of an “orphan”) - even (or especially) if the Korean Adoption Agency had all of our birth parents’ information. Children could not be sent overseas for adoption unless they were considered legally orphans and that is why our 호적 (family registry) is often blank when it comes to our birth parents - or it often has our own, sometimes made up name placed as the head of our own family household (an absurdity only found in the orphan hojuks of Korean Adoptees, and never in normal family hojuks). Thus, in our adoption files it says we were left or found somewhere (that we were abandoned) - this was very often false information. The difficult part is that it is often impossible to know what is true or false in individual Adoptees’ cases - some of the stories told to Adoptees in their English adoption documents were real, but it is hard to know for sure without actually finding a birth parent to confirm the stories. Therefore, Adoptees who may think that they were “abandoned” based on the false orphanization information in their English adoption paperwork, may not have in reality have been truly abandoned. For example, children before the 1980's could have gotten lost at a market or anywhere else, and not have been able to find their parents. Police often simply took lost children to orphanages or Adoption Agencies shortly after finding them or picking them up. Such children would not have been really abandoned - they were lost, and their parents may have previously registered them in the family registry.
Other children who were listed as supposedly “abandoned” in their English adoption paperwork may actually have been relinquished by Korean birth parents (or extended birth family members), and there is a possibility that these children may also have been registered in the family registry with their real Korean name.
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It’s possible (though certainly not guaranteed) in any anyone’s case that supposedly “abandoned” Adoptees may actually have been processed by an Adoption Agency with their REAL Korean name, and that these Adoptees may be able to locate themselves on their Korean birth parent’s registry - which would therefore yield the birth parent’s name.
This is why we suggest to all Adoptees who are searching, to take their adoption file to the 주민센터 (Community center) especially if there's a city in your file, and ask for your 호적 (family registry). If they produce the one from your adoption file, ask them if you're on anyone else's. If by chance your birth parents registered you, then you would have their information. The chances are probably better for anyone who is older, but definitely do this if you have not already done so.
In Korean Adoption Agency file reviews, you can catch them in the lies pretty easily, if you just look at the paperwork. One Adoptee’s file said that the Adoption Agency had given the Adoptee (made up) their name, yet the Adoptee was found by the police. When the social worker was asked to produce the police report, it listed the Adoptee’s name which
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The Adoption Agency had given to the Adoptee. When the social worker was asked how the police report could have used the Adoptee’s name if the Adoptee had not yet been turned over to the Adoption Agency, the case worker had to actually leave the room, and then later came back with a story that the report was made after the Adoptee was brought to the Adoption Agency. It is suspected that the case worker had to talk to someone, and that they came up with that the story to cover up the likelihood that the Adoptee had a real name.
Please note that only the Adoptee can conduct such a search - the Adoptee must go in person with their adoption file to local community centers (주민센터) close to their city / area of birth and ask for their family registry (호적).No one can do this on the Adoptee’s behalf. We highly recommend that you take a translator.
If you were a lost child, maybe your birth father and / or birth mother registered you with your real Korean name on the family registry (maybe your Korean name is REAL). For children who were lost / found by police who very often took the children directly to orphanages / Adoption Agencies, sometimes the orphanages / Adoption Agencies used the real Korean name of the child throughout the child’s English adoption paperwork.
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It's a long shot, but you basically go to the community center 주민센터
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