Home > National > Social Affairs

Man who 'adopted' four babies after paying their mothers acquitted of child trafficking

Published: 09 Apr. 2025, 20:57 Updated: 11 Apr. 2025, 13:34

Nurses care for a newborn at a hospital in Incheon on Feb. 26. [NEWS1]

A man was found not guilty of trafficking four children on Wednesday.

The defendant faced charges of violating the Child Welfare Act by illegally “adopting” four newborn babies between August 2014 and April 2017. He'd provided financial support to their four unmarried mothers, covering costs including obstetric care, transportation and living expenses.

In its ruling, the Daegu District Court stated that the financial support the defendant provided appeared “to have been paid as a matter of personal moral responsibility” and said that evidence submitted by the prosecution was insufficient to prove he'd sent the funds in exchange for custody of the children.

“It is difficult to interpret the payments as a fee for adoption or as part of a child trafficking transaction,” the court said.

The court also considered the man’s personal history and motivation.

“The defendant was the youngest of eight siblings and said he drew strength from growing up in a large family. He wanted to give his own children the same experience by creating a large family,” the ruling noted. “He appears to have taken in the children with the intention of raising them, not of trading them as objects.”

The court said the man had registered the children as his own on birth certificates and had been raising them without any signs of abuse.

“Given all the circumstances, it appears that the defendant accepted the children with the intention of raising them as his own,” the court concluded.

However, the court did separately convict the defendant of falsifying official records. It sentenced him to one year in prison, suspended for two years, for falsely registering himself as the biological father of the children and using those records.

The biological mothers of the four children had previously been sentenced to six months in prison, with two years suspended, and ordered to complete 40 hours of child trafficking prevention education.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.

BY LEE HAY-JUNE [[email protected]]