Dutch couple’s cases cast light on illegal adoptions as commission recognizes rights violations

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Dutch couple’s cases cast light on illegal adoptions as commission recognizes rights violations

Published: 27 Mar. 2025, 19:20 Updated: 10 Apr. 2025, 19:16

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

In a photo provided by their son Shin Seo-bin, Korean adoptees Seung-Yup Flikweert, 54, left, and Alice Yung Hee Delhaas, 55, pose for a family photo with their two sons and daughter. [SHIN SEO-BIN]

A Korean-born couple, both of whom were adopted by families in the Netherlands, requested an investigation by Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2022, arguing that their adoptions violated their rights.

Shin Seung-yup, 54, who also goes by his Dutch name Seung-Yup Flikweert, was adopted by a family in the Netherlands in 1975.

When he was adopted, Shin had already been registered under a family in Korea. However, an adoption agency created a false record listing him as an orphan to simplify the adoption process. The address of his home remains unclear, as his address was recorded as that of the adoption agency in Ssangmun-dong, Dobong District, northern Seoul.

Kim Mi-ae, his 55-year-old wife, who goes by her Dutch name Alice Yung Hee Delhaas, said she believes there was no process to find her biological parents before she was adopted to the Netherlands.

Her biological mother, who worked at factory, had temporarily left her in the care of an acquaintance. However, Kim was adopted to the Netherlands at the age of three in 1973, and there are no records of what happened during that period.

Her birth date was arbitrarily chosen by the adoption agency.

Kim’s biological mother, who had believed her daughter was dead, only learned that she had been adopted abroad when they were reunited through a television program in 2008.

On Wednesday, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a Korean government organization, recognized 56 adoptees as victims of human rights violations during a press conference in central Seoul.

Peter Moller, left, Han Boon-young, co-founders of the Danish Korea Rights Group, and adoptee Kim Yoo-ree, right, attend a press conference at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Seoul, on March 26. [AP/YONHAP]

This is only a small fraction of the 367 foreign adoptees — sent to countries like Denmark, the United States and Sweden between the 1960s and 1990s — who in 2022 requested the commission to conduct an investigation.

The commission was relaunched in December 2020 as an independent body to investigate issues, including human rights violations. Its investigations are set to continue through May this year.

The commission said it would continue reviewing other cases and announce the results before concluding the investigation in May.

It identified human rights violations such as falsified documents, adoptions carried out without legitimate consent and adoptive parents who were ineligible.

It further recommended that the government apologize for violating the rights of Korean adoptees, conduct research on the circumstances of adoptees, implement follow-up measures, provide remedies for victims and ratify the Hague Adoption Convention.

Shin and Kim have not yet received the commission’s findings regarding their cases.

Their son, Shin Seo-bin, who attended the press conference on their behalf, criticized the commission’s investigation process, arguing that it was too limited as it only examined the cases of those who applied.

The 26-year-old is currently studying foreign adoptions at Yonsei University’s Graduate School of International Studies.

“Since this harm was caused by national authorities in Korea’s modern history, a full review of all 200,000 foreign adoptees should be conducted,” he said.

“It is also unrealistic to expect adoptees to individually request information disclosure or file complaints due to language and cultural barriers, as well as a lack of information,” he added, calling for adoption agencies to release records to adoptees under Korea’s Act on Special Cases Concerning Adoption.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission Chairperson Park Sun-young, right, comforts adoptee Kim Yoo-ree during a press conference in Seoul on March 26. [AP/YONHAP]

During Wednesday’s press conference, Kim Yoo-ree, who was adopted to France in 1984, shared her experience of being harassed by her adoptive father.

“I dedicate this moment to the Korean adoptees who committed suicide after being adopted and isolated in rural areas of France,” she said in tears.

She further requested the Korean government to “reassess” the lifelong trauma suffered by victims of the country's overseas adoption policies and “thoroughly review” the commission's recommendations.

Han Boon-young, a Korean adoptee sent to Denmark, voiced concerns that many cases remain unresolved. She was not recognized as a victim by the commission.

“We cannot allow more adoptees to be victimized due to missing documents,” she said.

BY LEE AH-MI [[email protected]]