Latest Adoption News

Takeaways from AP’s story on the role of the West in widespread fraud with South Korean adoptions

Sep. 20, 2024 00:43 AM EDT

Western governments eagerly approved and even pushed for the adoption of South Korean children for decades, despite evidence that adoption agencies were aggressively competing for kids, pressuring mothers and bribing hospitals, an investigation led by The Associated Press has found. ...

Western nations were desperate for Korean babies. Now many adoptees believe they were stolen

Sep. 20, 2024 00:36 AM EDT

Yooree Kim marched into a police station in Paris and told an officer she wanted to report a crime. Forty years ago, she said, she was kidnapped from the other side of the world, and the French government endorsed it. She wept as she described years spent piecing it together,...

Widespread adoption fraud separated generations of Korean children from their families, AP finds

Sep. 19, 2024 14:58 PM EDT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — As the plane descended into Seoul, Robert Calabretta swaddled himself in a blanket, his knees tucked into his chest like a baby in the womb. A single tear ran down his cheek. The 34-year-old felt like a newborn — he was about to meet his parents for the...

Adoption fraud separated generations of South Korean children from their families, AP finds

Sep. 19, 2024 00:35 AM EDT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s government, Western countries and adoption agencies worked in tandem to supply some 200,000 Korean children to parents overseas, despite years of evidence they were being procured through questionable or downright unscrupulous means, an investigation led...

South Korean truth commission says it found more evidence of forced adoptions in the 1980s

Sep. 09, 2024 04:28 AM EDT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A South Korean commission found evidence that women were pressured into giving away their infants for foreign adoptions after giving birth at government-funded facilities where thousands of people were confined and enslaved from the 1960s to the 1980s. The...

China's halt of foreign adoptions leaves questions about pending cases

Sep. 05, 2024 14:36 PM EDT

BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese government is ending its intercountry adoption program, and the U.S. is seeking clarification on how the decision will affect hundreds of American families with pending applications. In a phone call with U.S. diplomats in China, Beijing said it “will...

Costa Rica arrests 5 child welfare agency officials on charges they trafficked children for adoption

Aug. 19, 2024 17:18 PM EDT

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Five officials from Costa Rica's child welfare agency were arrested on charges they were involved in trafficking children for the purpose of adoption, authorities said Wednesday. Randall Zúñiga, head of the country’s main investigative agency, the...

After the end of Roe, a new beginning for maternity homes

Aug. 02, 2024 08:14 AM EDT

ORANGE, Va. (AP) — On the wall of the maternity home, painted in large letters, is the motto: “Saving Babies, One Mom at a Time.” For founders Randy and Evelyn James, the home started with one baby — their own. Paul Stefan was the last of their six children,...

What are maternity homes? Their legacy is checkered

Aug. 02, 2024 08:10 AM EDT

Maternity homes have seen a resurgence in the two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Across the country, homes are sprouting up or expanding. Christian anti-abortion advocates want to open more of these transitional housing facilities, believing they are the next step in helping...

After the end of Roe v. Wade, a new beginning for maternity homes

Aug. 02, 2024 08:07 AM EDT

ORANGE, Va. (AP) — On the wall of the maternity home is the motto: “Saving Babies, One Mom at a Time.” For founders Randy and Evelyn James, the home started with one baby — their own. Paul Stefan was the last of their six children, born with a fatal condition....