The Current

Why Korean adoptees are returning to Korea

Over the past few decades, thousands of young Korean children have been adopted out of their home countries, and raised in homes around the world. But now, there's a reverse migration afoot -- adoptees making their way back to homelands they never really knew.
More than 200,000 children from Korea have been adopted and raised by families abroad over the past six decades. Now, some of those adoptees are pressuring the Korean government to change its laws, and put an end to international adoption. (Wilson X)

Over the past few decades, thousands of young Korean children have been adopted out of their home countries, and raised in homes around the world. But now, there's a reverse migration afoot -- adoptees making their way back to homelands they never really knew. We find out why some are now trying to put an end to international adoptions.

It's a home that I have to fight for.- Korean adoptee Laura Klunder, on Korea, where she now lives

In the past decade or so, many Korean adoptees have been returning to the land of their birth -- and not just to track down their biological parents, but to stay and put down new roots of their own. And now some of them are pressuring the Korean government to change its laws surrounding international adoption.

To find out more, we were joined by:

  • Laura Klunder is a representative of Adoptee Solidarity Korea, an organization of Korean adoptees that advocates for alternatives to inter-country adoption. In 1985, she was adopted by an American family. She moved back to Korea in 2011.
  • Stephen Morrison is the founder of Mission to Promote Adoption in Korea.


Do you have experience with inter-country adoption?

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This segment was produced by The Current's Josh Bloch.