SEOUL – The president of South Korea issued an apology on Thursday for the mishandled foreign adoption programs that were marred with fraud and exploitation. This comes months after the nation’s truth commission first acknowledged the government’s role in such misconduct.

In a Facebook post, President Lee Jae Myung conveyed “heartfelt apologies and words of comfort” on behalf of the nation to South Koreans adopted abroad, as well as their biological and adoptive families.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s findings, alongside recent court decisions, have unveiled human rights violations in international adoption processes, according to Lee. He pointed out the government’s failure to fulfill its duty in these situations, though he did not provide further details.

Expressing a “heavy heart,” Lee reflected on the “anxiety, pain and confusion” experienced by South Korean adoptees sent overseas during childhood. He urged officials to establish systems that protect adoptees’ rights and assist them in locating their biological parents.

South Korea faces increasing pressure to confront the pervasive fraud and abuses that afflicted its adoption systems, notably during the peak of the 1970s and 1980s, a period marked by thousands of yearly adoptions.

Numerous adoptees have since found that their records were manipulated to present them as abandoned orphans, with some being removed negligently, or even stolen, from their birth families.

In a landmark report in March, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded the government bore responsibility for facilitating adoption programs that were driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs. The report followed a nearly three-year investigation into complaints from 367 adoptees in Europe, the United States and Australia.

Its finding broadly aligned with a 2024 Associated Press investigation, in collaboration with Frontline (PBS), which detailed how South Korea’s governments, Western countries and adoption agencies worked in tandem to supply around 200,000 Korean children to parents overseas, despite years of evidence that many were procured through questionable or outright unscrupulous means.

After years of delay, South Korea in July ratified the Hague Adoption Convention, an international treaty meant to safeguard international adoptions. The treaty took effect in South Korea on Wednesday.