Nearly 400 South Koreans adopted as children by families in the West have requested an investigation into their adoptions through Friday, as Seoul faces growing pressure to reckon with a child export frenzy driven by dictatorships that ruled the country until the 1980s.
The commission on Thursday said it decided to investigate 34 cases among the 51 adoptees who first submitted their applications in August, which could possibly develop into the country's most far-reaching inquiry into foreign adoptions yet, the New York Times reports.
A total of 63 adoptees from the United States, Europe, and Australia submitted applications to the commission on Friday, claiming their adoptions were marred by falsified documents that laundered child statuses or identities as agencies raced to send thousands of children abroad each year.
The adoptees accused agencies of fabricating documents to ensure their adoptability, such as falsely registering them as orphans when they had living relatives or switching their identities with other children, which have resulted in lost connections or false reunions with birth relatives.
Similar issues have been raised by many of the 306 adoptees who previously submitted applications in past months, as they called for the commission to pressure agencies into fully opening their documents and to establish whether the government was responsible for the corrupt practices.
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