A South Korean woman in her 70s who searched for her missing daughter for 44 years without knowing she had been adopted to the United States has filed a lawsuit against the South Korean government and adoption agency for damages. This is the first case of a birth parent holding South Korean government accountable for the wrongful adoption of a child.
According to ABC News, Tae-soon Han, 70, the mother of her missing daughter, Laura Bender (birth name Gyeong-ha Shin), held a press conference in front of the Seoul Central District Court on October 7 and said she had filed a lawsuit for damages against the South Korean government and the adoption agency.
Han alleged that the South Korean government was responsible for failing to prevent her daughter’s adoption. She criticized Holt International Children’s Services, South Korea’s largest adoption agency, for failing to properly check her background and making no effort to find her parents.
“The state and adoption agencies bear a large responsibility for not fulfilling their duty to reunite missing children with their families,” Han’s lawyer, Soo-jung Kim, said at a press conference. “If missing child information had been properly shared among police departments and searches had been conducted, they would have found her easily,” she said, adding that the separation of Han and her daughter was caused by a rushed overseas adoption arrangement.
Shin went missing in May 1975 in Cheongju, North Chungcheong. “I was playing in the yard when a strange woman came up to me and told me that my family didn’t want me because my mom had another baby,” she recalled to AP on September 19. “I followed her to a train and was abandoned at Jecheon station,” she added. Shin was then handed over to an orphanage and then to an adoption agency, where he was adopted in February 1976 to the U.S. under a new Korean name, Kyong Hwa Baik.
In October 2019, Han was finally reunited with her daughter through 325 Kamra, an organization that uses DNA information to help people find their families.
Han spent 44 years without knowing that her daughter was adopted, visiting police stations, government agencies, and adoption agencies, and posting pictures of her daughter on streetlights and train stations.
“I’ve been searching for my child for 44 years, and now I can’t even talk to her in the same language,” Han said, adding, ”I’m so upset about the time I’ve lost.” In the lawsuit, Han is seeking 600 million won (roughly $445,000) in damages. Four people are named as plaintiffs, including Han, her husband, and her two children. Shin, was not included.
BY KYEONGJUN KIM, HOONSIK WOO [kim.kyeongjun1@koreadaily.com]
