BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China rescues kidnapped children

China rescues kidnapped children

Some of the rescued children were kidnapped years ago.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China rescues kidnapped children 
 
“Police in China say they have recovered more than 2,000 children in a six-month campaign against human trafficking.
 
The ministry of public security has set up a website with pictures of some of those kidnapped, in the hope of returning them to their families. 

The ministry website has pictures of 60 children, ranging from babies to young adults, who were kidnapped from their families. 

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children go missing in China each year.
Criminal gangs steal the children and sell them to childless couples.
In China's patriarchal society, baby boys are especially prized, sometimes selling for as much as $6,000 (£3,670), says the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Beijing.
Girls are sometimes sold for just $500 (£305), he says.

Children of poor farmers or migrant workers are often targeted. The parents of such children have complained in the past of official indifference to their plight.
Human trafficking is seen as a growing problem in China.

There have been several high-profile cases of abducted children being rescued from mines and brick kilns.

Increased wealth and freedom of movement in China have made human trafficking both more profitable and easier, analysts say.

Beijing has promised to do more. A national DNA database was set up this year to help trace missing children.”
 
The Korean War Baby reads this and other reports with alarm and hatred for those who are involved. It must be stopped by the authorities of each country and that is why all “Sending and Receiving” countries MUST implement the Hague Convention of on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (Hague...Child Abduction).

It must also be noted that most of the stealing and trade is WITHIN China. Perhaps some are being processed for InterCountry Adoption BUT in this article and others. In Jan. of 2009 this took place:
 

China busts Baby Sale Gang Jan. 2009

“One official estimate by the US government said between 10,000 and 20,000 people are trafficked within China every year, and that the vast majority are women and children.
The problem is exacerbated by strict birth control policies, which limit many couples to only one child.
Some families want a boy - one of the children seized in Yueyang was abandoned when she was found to be a girl, the Beijing News said.
Families may also buy trafficked women and children to use as extra labour and household servants.”
Diane Wei Lang, an author who has documented some of these stories, spoke on BBC just today. She says that the story has taken years for the government to take action.
The Korean War Baby condemns this practice absolutely. Yet…can one then claim that “all adoptions from China were abducted children?” This does NOT seem to be the case, when you examine the facts. Boys are rarely adopted OUTSIDE China, with some figures claiming 80% or more are female girls for ICA.

Do you have any links on this subject? Send them to the KWB, help stamp out this horror! What are the facts on Korea? The KWB urges the government of Korea to move forward on the process of signing the major Hague Conventions on these issues.

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Baby-Stealing For Profit? Truth on Adoption Agencies

QUESTION: ARE ADOPTION AGENCIES MAKING A HUGE PROFIT AND STEALING BABIES?

There has been many accusations on the internet that Adoption Agencies have profited in the Huge Adoption Industry. Why it is counted as a 1.5 Billion Dollar Business, with claims by some that Baby-Stealing is rampant. Certainly there are cases, far too many, of unscrupulous ‘middle-men’ making profit on ‘finding’ babies for adoption in several countries. The news accounts online are full of different countries shutting down adoption programs because of the uncovering of these gross irregularities.

Wikipedia/International Adoption

US State Dept.

Hague Convention on International Adoption/ Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption

Prof. David Smolin

Yes, even in Korea there have been some cases of mistakes, wrong birthdates or 2 birthdates on documents, claims of ‘abandonment’ that turned out to be incorrect, etc. The numbers of such cases are few in comparison with the overall total; BUT not for those who find out that the “story of Abandonment” might not be true.

Even ONE case ought not to be. It seems to be more difficult for many European Korean Adoptees to grow up in societies that on the outward appearance seem to be "Color-Blind" but are still in progress on social acceptance of those deemed "Different". Tobias Hubinette recently posted this on Sweden, one of the most progressive of countries, on laws protecting rights of all, but this study shows that in day to day living Asians/Middle Eastern/African/Others all have various degrees of racial prejudice.

To be Non-white in a Colour-Blind Society.pdf (127KB

 Again it seems that Laws alone do not change Hearts. Latent prejudice is only just below the surface, simmering like a caldera of molten lava, waiting to erupt. The Los Angeles Riots in the early '90s is a perfect example of racial bias turning into attacks based purely on ethnic groups, as Blacks turned on Korean business owners in South Central. 

Each story must be investigated and determined if mistakes were made, or if there was deliberate falsifying of documents for meeting quotas and making profits. It is difficult to do in each case because some of mankind is inherently evil and seeks profit where ever they can.

TRACK is an organization looking into these cases, and the KWB supports them and is a member of both TRACK and ASK Adoptee Solidarity for Korea. Post Adoption Services are now being done to help aid the thousands of Adoptees who are returning and looking into their past.

Woman who arrange marriages (Matchmakers) called 중매쟁이 or Joong Mae Jaengi also connect unwed mothers with infertile couples through legal but secret adoptions. The Dutch couple were a terrible example of this practice. Here , here, or here. Can we say then that ALL domestic adoptions are BAD? Of Course not, but “some people’s children” would use the “same brush to paint” an ugly example as the NORM.

Have some adopted children been murdered by their adoptive father? Yes And did another one kill her adoptive daughter, well, yes. here. There are other chilling stories of Adoptive Parents sexually molesting their own adopted child. BUT shall we blame adoption for the cause?

Many checks on families are done, but if there is NO police record of arrest even a Pedophile can slip by. The KWB WAS totally against “Same sex adoption”! He had seen children turned into Lesbians and Gays, raised in Filipino homes where homosexuality was the norm. To allow a child to be adopted into that is WRONG.

(BUT then, there is some cases in Korea, such as a famous clothing designer who adopted a SON and he turned out okay. Over the years the KWB has even become great friends with some gays and lesbians, some currently practicing and some trying to "quit being gay". His views on gays and lesbians adopting children is being tested, and the jury is still out, perhaps it is better to be loved in a Same-sex marriage than to be aborted, raised in institutional care, etc. Yes, the KWB has to consider even this, to be fair and balanced.) 

So, shall we then say that it was Adoption at fault? Life is full of problems and challenges, he does not want to minimize anyone's story. Suffering in life is not just due to being adopted; there is Divorce, death of parents, siblings, loss from disease, and smorgasbord of terrible things that afflict mankind in this life.

Abused sometimes become Abusers


When the KWB was counseling at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship he heard first hand stories of rape, beatings, physical and emotional abuse, people listening  to ‘voices inside’ telling to ‘cut out their babies eyes because a demon was inside’ the baby. There was no end to stories of sufferings endured by men and women, when they were but young children. 

Victims of sexual crimes are deeply affected throughout their lives, whether their abuser was of the same-sex or opposite sex. Some become sexually promiscuous with those of either sex. Sometimes a few of them became the Abusers and predators.  Pedophiles are reviled by the public, yet the facts are that 100 percent of Pedophiles were themselves sexually molested as children. Most do not intend violence towards their victims, in their own minds they are "giving love and affection" to young children. 


Korean society's views on Adoptees-Damaged Goods

BUT it becomes in Korea another reasons for 'many' Koreans to Fear, mistrust, or hate, those who ‘must have something wrong with them’ to be given up for adoption. This is the Korean majority point of view from children to adults toward the issues of Adoption. Adoptees have “something wrong with them” is a typical belief. Korean Media supports these wrong beliefs, and the horror movie "Orphan" did not help at all! 

Over the next few posts The Korean War Baby will look over these controversial issues. First, let us look at just the recent records of the KWB adoption agency, Holt International Children’s Service.

(Please look HERE for complete online magazine)
spring09.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Click on to enlarge

 Holt International Online Magazine/Spring09_pg 4Page 4 Close up on 2007/2008 Financial Highlights

SHOCKING!!

Please note that in 2007

Total Revenue	$19,240,847
Total Operating Expenses	$ 18,883,395
Balance	$357,452

They earned a whopping profit of $357,452

Oh, the Horror! Money made for selling babies to terrible people who want to get a Slave, why they might sell them to pedophiles or lock them in dungeons...

HELLO! DOES THIS SOUND LIKE STUPID LOGIC? OVER THE TOP, INSANE? OUTRAGEOUSLY FALSE ACCUSATIONS?!!

Well it IS. Please look at the figures for 2008, after the effects of the global downturn. Let’s do the math again. (Double-check me)

Total Revenue	$19,759,754
Total Operating Expenses	$21,233,763
Balance	Minus   $1,474,009

HERE IT IS FOLKS, THE EXPOSE OF THE 21 CENTURY, Holt International made a profit, OH, NO…a LOSS in 2008…Hmmm. What up with that? Thought they were making the bucks?

Let’s look at the MONEY TRAIL. Where did they Spend all that money?

Holt Intl. Annual Report 2008

34,295	Children served in all programs
10,561	Families served in all countries (USA not included)
717	Children placed with Domestic families of their Birth Country
818	Children placed with US adoptive Families
218	Waiting children placed with adoptive families
40,931	Total accumulated number of children placed by Holt with US adoptive families 1956-2008

Well there you have it, exposed by the KWB, at least one of the four major Adoption Agencies in Korea has been shown to NOT BE PRO-FITTING IN BABY TRAFFICKING!!

Let’s all get a GRIP and check out the facts before making Blanket statements or accusations.

Let’s work together to stop abuses, correct the mindset of Korean people on Adoptees and Adoption. Help urge the government support women who want to keep their child, whether unwed mothers or divorced women with children. Many positive things can be done if we work together.

Coming: More exposures ‘revealed’.

Domestic vs. Overseas Korean Adoption « TRACK

From Jane Jeong Trenka at Truth and Reconcilation for the Adoptee Community of Korea (TRACK)
Domestic vs. Overseas Korean Adoption « TRACK

Domestic and Inter-Country Adoptions 1999-2008

Year	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008
Dom.	1726	1686	1770	1694	1564	1641	1461	1332	1388	1306
ICA	2409	2360	2436	2365	2287	2258	2101	1899	1264	1250

Jane writes in her blog: Jane's Blog
and JusticeSpeaking-TRACK
“Despite a lot of positive publicity, domestic adoption is actually going DOWN, very steadily, in South Korea. The government should use its funds to support single moms in raising their children whom they love, and who have a home already — not promote domestic adoption.  Check out the statistics at”
(Underlining by the KWB)

Korean War Baby comments:
The Korean War Baby Concurs-Domestic Adoptions continue to drop in overall numbers. He also agrees that the Korean Government MUST INCREASE support for single unwed Mothers who want to KEEP their babies.
FURTHERMORE, Government should also continue to Promote Domestic Adoptions.
THEN promote Ethnic Koreans of the Diaspora world wide to adopt (ICA).
Finally, allow Others to adopt, meaning “Rich White Folks” (I am just kidding most are really middle class under even Pres. Obama’s 250,000 income level for RICH). Or Westerners period say Europeans.

Domestic Adoptions, according to Steven Morrison of Mission to Promote Adoption by Koreans (MPAK), tells me about 80% are still done Secretly and the child is never told that he/she was adopted. He acknowledges that this is unfortunate but the way most Koreans prefer to do it. Even in Korean families in the USA, many go to elaborate means to ‘hide and pretend’ that the new baby is theirs. This is because of the society’s feeling of shame concerning adoption. It sound wrong to westerners but understandable in Korean society. It is slowly, slowly changing.
But many adoptees are discovering “What the hell? I am adopted?! Igooo Cham!”  They will suffer the shock of finding out, overhearing relatives, being teased that they don’t really LOOK like their siblings or parents, a sense of knowing something is wrong, or even through blood tests.
Late Discovery Adoptee has many stories of those who found out at various ages that they had been adopted.
Post Adoption Research Center in New South Wales, Australia, also provide resources

Sliding Scale

You SEE, a sliding scale of priorities and Reality is ACTUALLY happening NOW.

Look again at the numbers!!

Domestic- 1306/ ICA- 1250

Well that means that, hmmm add together,

2,556 babies were born and GIVEN UP for Adoption in 2008

Now many other Unwed mothers chose to try and keep their babies. According to MOHWFA (Ministry of Health Welfare and Family Affairs) and other sources 20-25% of Unwed Mothers are keeping their babies.

This could mean over 500 babies. Perhaps Pastor Kim of KoRoot or Jane could help me with more accurate figures.

Hey the Korean War Baby talks to EVERYBODY! Let’s work together on this whole issue. Maybe we could even get Korean teens and university student to use condoms and abstinence….Nah.

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Balance? What Balance!

What does it mean to be balanced? We get the origin from the Latin words "Bi" and "lanx" meaning '2 metal pans'. You know the scale with pans that 'balances' in the middle to show equal parts in weight. So Balance could mean equality of the parts of a whole. Hey I flunked a math class and was about to be drafted so I enlisted in the US Marines! I think I understand “Equal Parts of a Whole” means each one is equal to the other.

The Korean War Baby believes that to have Balanced Views we need ALL the facts, opinions, stories, etc. from ALL the people involved in "This Thing of Ours-Adoption". Some call it a Adoption Triad, counting Adoptee, Birth 'People'/Family, and Adoptive People/Family but there are many more that are Part of the Whole. Governments, Court Advocates, Social Workers, Police Dept., Adoption Agencies, United Nations, Hague Convention, Religious Leaders, Women's Rights groups, Children's Rights, YOU COULD GO ON and ON.

Every group has some part and influence on "This Thing of Ours-Adoption". Perhaps you are wondering why do I borrow a "La Cosa Nostra" term "This Thing of Ours" when speaking of the Mafia organization. I see Adoption as well very Organized and Powerful but Not just Evil. Some may see adoption as Child Laundering or stealing; others as the greatest thing since 'sliced bread' (showing my age). WELL, the entire SPECTRUM has extremes and everything in between.

Why Balance with "THEM"?

Getting back to BALANCE...In order to find balance you have to have EQUALITY. The pie must be cut into many Equal parts and ALL parts should listen and learn from the others. No one group should say "Only our view is right". There are many sides, more than a Triad, involved and affecting the Balance.

Balancing New Tires

When you buy new Tires each must be Balanced on a machine, with small weights added to some parts of the rim. If tires are not balanced as the tire spins faster at higher speeds any small IMbalance is magnified and produces bouncing, shaking and can cause a really rough ride or tires to blow.

SEE, all 'players' in this game of life should/must/can be IN balance with the others. If we truly hear and read all the stories we might even come to a Balanced Opinion that would truly seek the Best solution from case to case. Can anyone argue with that?

It begins with listening to ALL stories from the horrible to the wonderful-there is the complete spectrum aspect; sorting fact from fiction; comparing the differences; analyzing all the data. It takes hard work, it takes dedication, it takes wanting to find Balance.

Without Balance Adoption will continue to be a bumpy, bouncy, rough ride, just waiting to 'blow out'.

The Korean War Baby

Survey “Role of Adoption in your Life”

Take a Survey-for yourself
How much does your Adoption affect your life? Korean War Baby supports any surveys that help all of us to understand the complexity of “This Thing of Ours-Adoption”.
For those who were adopted, domestic or ICA (Inter-Country Adoption) I recommend taking this survey. It will help us look at how being Adopted has played a role in our lives. I have posted this for anyone who was adopted, but it might help to look at the survey as a Prospective Adoptive Parent or Adoptive Parent even. Some Adoption forums are preparing PAP’s much better than in the past. The resources available online for Adoptive Parents to understand the problems adoptee may feel are also very helpful.
Here is part of an email I received from Colleen Warner Colaner, M.A. take a look, (one is encouraged to take their time):
“This study is on adoptive identity, or how individuals understand the role of adoption in their life. Many of the questions may seem familiar, and some of the questions are exactly the same as in previous studies you may have completed. This is intentional – I’m sorry for the redundancy, but feel free to use the same answers as before. This survey is an extension of my previous studies, and I need to get new responses. Below is the link to the new survey:

Follow this link to the Survey:

Take the Survey
Or copy and paste the url below into your internet browser:
QualtricSurveyEngineLink
Thank you so much for your support of my research. If you would like any information on my studies, please feel free to contact me.”
 
Colleen Warner Colaner, M.A.
Ph.D. Student/Graduate Teaching Instructor
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
418 Oldfather Hall
Lincoln, NE 6858

cwcolaner@huskers.unl.edu

Katherine Heigl Adopts Korean Baby with Special Needs (PHOTO, VIDEO) | Bitten and Bound

Image via Wikipedia

Posted on: September 11th, 2009

 

Actress Katherine Heigl and her husband Josh Kelley have adopted a 10-month old Korean girl who will be named Naleigh, after Heigl’s mother Nancy and her sister Leigh. The fact that the child has special needs allowed the process to be shortened according the the Grey’s Anatomy star.

Heigl will sit down with Ellen DeGeneres, the newest American Idol judge, on Friday September 11 to provide more details about the big event that happened just this week. One of the reasons that Katherine decided to adopt an Asian child is because she has a sister Meg who was adopted from Korea as an infant. She said she decided to do Ellen’s talk show so that people wouldn’t “think I stole a Korean baby.”

View video of Katherine Heigl on Ellen below.

Katherine Heigl Adopts Korean Baby with Special Needs (PHOTO, VIDEO) Bitten and Bound
The Korean War Baby comments:
So here is a ‘dreaded case of Celebrity Adoption’, oh dear me, the Horror, how awful! “She must be doing it just to become…uh, famous, well, more famous then. How dare she take the child away from it’s cultural background, and from the natural mother”.
I know not everyone feels that way, but ‘some’ do think that way. Good points BUT let’s look at all the facts.
Fact #1: Katherine has an Adopted sister from Korea!! So auntie will be a Korean face, and help her to adjust to living with “Rich White Folks”.
Fact #2: Baby has “Special Needs” (this is the PC term for Disabilities) What? How did this baby get born, must have slipped by the sonograms or they would have aborted the thing. Oh, the natural mother did not want to keep it. Understandable, in THIS Korean society, most Disabled people got that way from being hit by cars.
Fact #3: Baby is ten months old. (until 6 months old, ONLY Koreans living in Korea CAN adopt the baby). SO….no one in the Motherland Wanted it…Special Needs children do cost and the horror of having everyone ‘look’ at you, oh the shame. Government help is a lot of help.
“Between 2000 and 2006, only 2% of the children adopted who were classified as having special needs, including being born prematurely, were placed domestically. In 2006, for example, 12 special needs or premature children were adopted domestically in Korea as against 713 such children who were placed abroad (Ministry of Health and Welfare
, 2007a).
From “Openness in Korean (Domestic) Adoptions”
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a903709611
by (peter.hayes@sunderland.ac.uk) and (hekim@kosin.ac.kr)
Let me look at those figures again folks, someone help me with the math, 12 over 713 that would be what percent? Lord help me, failing math caused me to enlist because I received my draft notice…Oh, here it is:
12/713 = 0.01683 percent? Is that right?
In this case, hands down, it is the right thing for the baby girl to have a loving family, even though they are not racially matched. Who can say differently? Send me your views, The Korean War Baby wants to hear from all my ‘dozen’ readers.
*Special Thanks to Bert Spoor for the link: For the Dutchman's point of view go to . . .FIREBERT

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Adoption History::Pearl Buck, "The Children Waiting: The Shocking Scandal of Adoption," 1955

Part Four: Pearl S. Buck

Adoption History::Pearl Buck, "The Children Waiting: The Shocking Scandal of Adoption," 1955

Buck with a Welcome House child, late 1960s

Because of Buck’s popularity, her article criticizing agency social workers, sectarian institutions, and the reigning matching paradigm attracted a great deal of attention, including a letter of protest from Joseph Reid, the Executive Director of the Child Welfare League of America.

Two babies came [to me] from adoption agencies, where they were considered unadoptable because it was difficult to find adoptive parents to “match” them. I was sure that there must be good families, matching or not, who could love these babies and indeed there were. . . .

Yet I continue acutely and constantly aware of the thousands of children waiting. . . . These are the citizens of my new world, the children without parents and the parents without children, pressing eagerly toward each other, and yet unable to reach each other. A barrier stands between, a high wall, and in the middle of the wall is a narrow gate, kept locked until a social agency unlocks it a little way and lets one child through at a time. . . .

Nobody knows truthfully how many children are in our orphanages. There are many kinds of orphanages but the largest number belong to religious groups. It was once necessary, I do not doubt, for religious orders to care for orphans, but certainly that day is past. Parents are waiting to adopt them. True, it would be very difficult to close these orphanages, not because of the children but because of vested interests. . . .

The rights of natural parents over children must be defined. Children are not property, but they are considered so under our laws. . . . There is no magic in blood relationship when parents alienate their children by neglect or desertion. Yet under our laws and our customs blood still takes precedence, blood instead of the reality of love. . . . The human qualities of love and understanding and acceptance alone should decide the fate of a child rather than race and religion.

Where all else is equal, of course similarity in race and religion is good but human destiny should not be based on these two elements. . . . I venture to say, were the dead hands of neglectful relatives removed, were the divisive and possessive jealousies of religious groups replaced by the spirit of true religion. . .that nearly all children, at least up to the age of 12, would be easily adoptable. No, when I think of teen-age boys and girls I see children still hungry for home and parents and I withdraw the age limitation.

And how. . .could we ever get so many children adopted when our social agencies cannot cope with what we have? I submit a controversial answer. It could be done if the red tape of adoption procedures were eliminated and only essentials kept. There are, I am sure, sincere and unselfish social workers and religious persons in the field of child welfare and adoption who honestly believe that they are doing the best that can be done, unaware that they themselves are the hindrances because they are faithful to red tape and encrusted in tradition. . . .

There is a surplus of children but the parents who are waiting are prevented from adopting them. . . . Let no small arguments be raised here. It is idle to retort, for example, that adoptive parents usually want a perfect child, that most children are not perfect, and so on. They can be helped to want a handicapped children, a child of mixed origin, or any child at all. . . . We can tear down the walls that keep them prisoners of red tape, prejudice and religious division. . . . We can refuse to accept the excuse that there are not enough children to satisfy adoptive parents.

Source: Pearl S. Buck, “The Children Waiting: The Shocking Scandal of Adoption,” Woman's Home Companion, September 1955, 33, 129-132.

The Korean War Baby comments:

Well, knock me over with a forklift, seems that this woman might have influenced Harry Holt a bit. We will have to consult Molly Holt on this, did Pearl influence Harry or the other way around. Some have mocked the “Christian ideology that inspired Holt” to start the Holt Adoption Program and go against Social Welfare standards in the USA against adopting what is known today as “TransRacial Adoption.”

Some have put the blame on Harry Holt for TransRacial Adoptions becoming the norm. It is true that Harry Holt received TV and Newspaper massive coverage that seemed to give him most of the credit. However, there were many other organizations in Korea before Harry Holt came in 1955 to adopt eight Korean Orphans. In “Seed from the East” Bertha Holt tells how Harry was given credit for bringing a group from Child Placement Agency, a quasi-government organization that later became privatized as Social Welfare Society (SWS) in 1970.

CPA actually helped process the Holt’s first group of 12, that left on May 21, 1956 but spent until the 11th of June in Toyko, Japan because of chicken pox quarantine.

Departure May 21,1956 (on left side) Admitted Jun 11, 1956 in Honolulu, T. H. (Territory of Hawaii)

From the Korean War Baby’s Passport, I was Holt Adoptee #A-20, Jun Yong Soo, soon to become Donald Gordon BELL.

Harry Holt has been ‘demonized’ by a few who do not quite understand the WHOLE history of those times. Holt became the scourge of some who are seemingly completely against TransRacial Adoptions.

Not Angry Adoptees vs. Happy Adoptees

We must stop comparing Angry vs. Happy Adoptees. We are all victims of life and suffer abandonment, separation, attachment difficulty, personal problems of lack of trust, etc. It is NOT US and THEM.

Those who had ‘bad experiences’ in adoption are not all “angry adoptees”, something that the Korean War Baby has learned personally, because he joined groups such as ASK (Adoptee’s Solidarity Korea) and TRACK (Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea). He found ASK and TRACK adoptees and Koreans as honest, diligent, sincere people. Hey, they were NOT even Angry, well most of them, but even the ones who are angry have SO much to be angry about, it is from the roots of deep sorrow, pain, wounding of their spirit.

Some have had huge problems seeking answers and getting complete files from Adoption Agencies. These are issues that are being addressed by improving the Post-Adoption Services. Western minds understanding the Korean ways of doing and thinking can often clash.

The Korean War Baby found ASK and TRACK members seeking answers on a wide range of issues that he also agreed with to certain degrees. Such as helping prevent pregnancy, increasing support from the Korean government for Unwed Mothers, promoting Domestic adoptions in Korea.

In seeking truth and viewpoints from all, we must know what each other believes. There is much common ground that we can all stand on and accept on putting the welfare of the child first. I believe that only small issues exist where disagreement may compel us all to seek better answers and possible compromise.

Again, the Korean War Baby feels that as long as children are born and given up by mothers willingly, they should be then adopted by if possible ethnic Koreans, both domestic or living abroad Koreans, then part Koreans, then Korean Adoptees, then by families of “other ethnicity”. Whew! There is a pyramid or tower of order of what is “idea” to the next best thing. That is life, yes?

Mothers must NOT be not pushed, tricked, coerced in any way, etc. The Hague Convention should and must be signed by Korea and strictly enforced. By working together, perhaps fewer children will be parentless, fatherless, abandoned by divorce (OH, there is another huge problem here in Korea in the recent years). The world is not perfect but we can work to improve it. Can anyone disagree with that?

Pearl S. Buck- “The Child Who Never Grew”

http://www.offenburger.com/carlapaper.asp?link=20050805

“The Child Who Never Grew,” by Pearl S. Buck (1952, and a second edition in 1992)

“…And yet, almost more powerful and fascinating was the “Foreword” written by James A. Michener, author of “South Pacific” and so many other classics.
Michener writes of Pearl S. Buck as his neighbor in eastern Pennsylvania at the close of World War II. And another well-known neighbor there was Oscar Hammerstein, the famous lyricist.

Michener and Hammerstein help found “Welcome House”

Michener tells how Buck convinced both Hammerstein and himself to help her with an adoption program for Asian-American orphans – born of American military fathers and Southeast Asian mothers.

The three of them founded “Welcome House,” which Michener describes as “a meticulously run orphanage for ‘unadoptable’ Asian-American children,” and Buck funded much of the cost of its operation with her book royalties.

That’s an inspiring story, one that makes “The Child Who Never Grew” worth reading, just to be able to read Michener’s “Foreword.”
But you won’t stop there. And when you begin reading Pearl Buck’s story about her mentally challenged daughter, the insights Michener has provided about his neighbor become even more profound.

Pearl’s daugther

“The Child Who Never Grew” is a mere 107 pages long. And when it begins on page 25 – after the foreword and introduction – Buck writes, “I have been a long time making up my mind to write this story. It is a true one, and that makes it hard to tell. Several reasons have helped me to reach the point this morning, after an hour or so of walking through the winter woods, when I have finally resolved that the time has come for the story to be told. Some of the reasons are in the many letters which I have received over the years from parents with a child like mine. They write to ask me what to do. When I answer, I can only tell them what I have done. They ask two things of me: First, what they shall do for their children, and, second, how shall they bear the sorrow of having such a child?”

Buck explains how she can answer the first question, but the second one is more difficult “…for endurance of inescapable sorrow is something which has to be learned alone,” she writes.
Another reason she says she decided to write “The Child Who Never Grew” was because “I want my child’s life to be of use in her generation. She is one who has never grown mentally beyond her early childhood, therefore she is forever a child, although in years she is old enough now to have been married and to have children of her own – my grandchildren who will never be.”
She continues, “When I knew at last that there could never be an answer, my own resolve shaped into the determination to make meaning out of the meaningless, and so provide the answer, though it was of my own making.”
And Buck’s answer to the meaninglessness is in “The Child Who Never Grew.” It’s well worth the read.

- Carla Offenburger

Korean War Baby comments:

Pearl S. Buck actually had a hereditary disease that caused her first and only daughter to be institutionalized all of her life. Ms. Buck had a hysterectomy to prevent her from having natural children, thus leading her to adopting six children. Perhaps her forced infertility led her to desire even more so to adopt the “unadoptable”.

Brief Biography of Pearl S. Buck

Part Two: Pearl established Welcome House

Brief Biography of Pearl S. Buck

In 1934, because of conditions in China, and also to be closer to Richard Walsh and her daughter Carol, whom she had placed in an institution in New Jersey, Pearl moved permanently to the US. She bought an old farmhouse, Green Hills Farm, in Bucks County, PA. She and Richard adopted six more children over the following years. Green Hills Farm is now on the Registry of Historic Buildings; fifteen thousand people visit each year.

From the day of her move to the US, Pearl was active in American civil rights and women's rights activities. She published essays in both Crisis, the journal of the NAACP, and Opportunity, the magazine of the Urban League; she was a trustee of Howard University for twenty years, beginning in the early 1940s. In 1942, Pearl and Richard founded the East and West Association, dedicated to cultural exchange and understanding between Asia and the West.

In 1949, outraged that existing adoption services considered Asian and mixed-race children unadoptable, Pearl established Welcome House, the first international, inter-racial adoption agency; in the nearly five decades of its work, Welcome House has assisted in the placement of over five thousand children. In 1964, to provide support for Amerasian children who were not eligible for adoption, Pearl also established the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, which provides sponsorship funding for thousands of children in half-a-dozen Asian countries.

Pearl Buck died in March, 1973, just two months before her eighty-first birthday. She is buried at Green Hills Farm.”

Korean War Baby comments:

As a Mixed-Race, Half-Breed HonHyolA (혼혈아) naturally the Korean War Baby feel strongly that TransRacial Adoption is okay. We who are Mixed-Blooded are obviously different and if Adopted by Rich White Folks (What happened to me, my parents were not even comfortably well off?) we ‘stand out’.

Now those who are of ‘Full or Pure’ blood, have different issues that shout out, “Hey, look at me, I am Asian”. (Please don’t get the idea that I am angry at my brothers/sisters who ARE Racially pure Korean…Okay, okay, I am just a tiny bit jealous. Even my good friends Nolin and David looks more Korean than I do, though they are also of mixed blood).

Both Mixed and Full ethnic Koreans have though common issues to deal with in life. I believe the issues are very similar.

Part Three of Pearl S. Buck will examine her writings on why she thought Transracial Adoptions were ‘Okay’.

Brief Biography of Pearl S. Buck

Brief Biography of Pearl S. Buck

TransRacial Adoptions were just not done before Pearl S. Buck got involved. Before Harry Holt even thought of adopting the dynamic woman broke the racial barriers that led to TransRacial Adoptions. Her writings may have influenced the Holts to consider adoptions. The Korean War Baby will post several times on Pearl S. Buck and her views on Adoption.

The Korean War Baby

Pearl S. Buck family 1894

“Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker was born on June 26, 1892, in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Her parents, Absalom and Caroline Sydenstricker, were Southern Presbyterian missionaries, stationed in China. Pearl was the fourth of seven children (and one of only three who would survive to adulthood). She was born when her parents were near the end of a furlough in the United States; when she was three months old, she was taken back to China, where she spent most of the first forty years of her life.”

From childhood, Pearl spoke both English and Chinese. She was taught principally by her mother and by a Chinese tutor, Mr. Kung. In 1900, during the Boxer Uprising, Caroline and the children evacuated to Shanghai, where they spent several anxious months waiting for word of Absalom's fate.

In 1910, Pearl enrolled in Randolph-Macon Woman's College, in Lynchburg, Virginia, from which she graduated in 1914. Although she had intended to remain in the US, she returned to China shortly after graduation when she received word that her mother was gravely ill. In 1915, she met a young Cornell graduate, an agricultural economist named John Lossing Buck. They married in 1917, and immediately moved to Nanhsuchou (Nanxuzhou) in rural Anhwei (Anhui) province. In this impoverished community, Pearl Buck gathered the material that she would later use in The Good Earth and other stories of China.

The Bucks' first child, Carol, was born in 1921; a victim of PKU, she proved to be profoundly retarded. Furthermore, because of a uterine tumor discovered during the delivery, Pearl underwent a hysterectomy. In 1925, she and Lossing adopted a baby girl, Janice. The Buck marriage was unhappy almost from the beginning, but would last for eighteen years.

Pearl had begun to publish stories and essays in the 1920s, in magazines such as Nation, The Chinese Recorder, Asia, and Atlantic Monthly. Her first novel, East Wind, West Wind, was published by the John Day Company in 1930. John Day's publisher, Richard Walsh, would eventually become Pearl's second husband, in 1935, after both received divorces.

In 1931, John Day published Pearl's second novel, The Good Earth. This became the best-selling book of both 1931 and 1932, won the Pulitzer Prize and the Howells Medal in 1935, and would be adapted as a major MGM film in 1937. Other novels and books of non-fiction quickly followed. In 1938, less than a decade after her first book had appeared, Pearl won the Nobel Prize in literature, the first American woman to do so. By the time of her death in 1973, Pearl would publish over seventy books: novels, collections of stories, biography and autobiography, poetry, drama, children's literature, and translations from the Chinese.”

Coming: Part Two

Pearl S. Buck on Adopting across Racial divides!!

Adult Adoptee Blog, Adopted Adult Blog - Adoption is not Doom and Gloom

This is very interesting point of view:

Posted by : Abby in Adoptee Blog at 08:15 pm  

“At times it seems like adoption is all doom and gloom for a whole number of reasons. You will have gloom in adoption just as everything else in this life. But gloom does not fill adoption as some would like others to believe. There are plenty of adoptees that have lived a happy and fulfilled life even with being adopted.

Is Adoption Bad for All?
While there are a few adoptees that are scarred, wounded through adoption, this is not the case for most adoptees. Granted it is easy to wonder what kind of impact adoption will have on an adoptee when there seems to be so much negativity concerning adoption.

I had a conversation awhile back about why there only seemed to be adoptees blogging and speaking out that had great issues with adoption. The question was asked why do people look for things on the internet and the reasons are: the need of information, struggling with issues, looking to make sense of their own adoption, finding others with the same feelings to relate to, etc.. This means there is not necessarily a lot of unhappy adoptees out there but maybe some that struggle with adoption find themselves needing the outlet to write about their feelings.
Most Do NOT think Adoption is Negative
Most adoptees I know do not think adoption is a negative thing or a focus in their lives, which means they are living life. To them adoption is just a part of their lives not the source of their issues or pain, so they do not need to live with adoption as the focus.
My parents did not raise me as being adopted (meaning I was raised just as other children) nor was it the central theme of my childhood. I was raised as any other child that was loved it just happened to be through adoption. I believe with adoptees the main thing should be providing them a loving family and allowing the too become the person they are. My childhood is not fulfilled with thoughts of adoption but normal childhood memories. When I think and remember things from my childhood it is about family times we had together, the holidays we celebrated, and the bonds that grew over the years. When I talk about my life I talk about my children, husband, family, pets, friends, childhood….my life which is not all about adoption.
This is one of my last adoption blogs here so I wanted to leave one last voice that adoption can be an amazing gift and experience when you are blessed with great adoptive parents. Do not believe all the gloom and doom about adoption.

Technorati Tags: Happy Adoptee?

Adult Adoptee Blog, Adopted Adult Blog - Adoption is not Doom and Gloom
The Korean War Baby acknowledges that in TransRacial adoption there is the obvious situation that the child adoptee “Stands out” because of their not looking like the parents. If you are a Korean Adoptee please send me comments or send an email at koreanwarbaby@gmail.com to give your views on TransRacial Adoption. “Are you a Happy Adoptee?”

Unlucky Female Babies

“The Abandoned Princess-7th Daughter”

Last year, in May of 2008, I met a Korean student who told me that she had been adopted domestically. Her name must remain secret because some of her relatives do not actually know that she was given up for adoption. I will call her 'Marie' because her story is very similar to a Korean Folk story called "Abandoned Princess" or " Ba Ri Gong Ju".

"In Korea, not having a son was especially bad luck, and based on the teachings of Confucius a woman who did not produce a son, broke one of the “Seven Virtues”. The husband could divorce her and marry another woman, because a son was necessary for continuing the blood lines.

‘The Seventh daughter’ were considered especially bad luck, because she was considered to be cursed with special psychic powers or fortunetelling abilities. She was also born in the year of the Horse, very inauspicious for daughters!

A famous legend is known, from the Shaman religion, of a “seventh daughter of a Neo-Chosen King who “Threw away his unlucky seventh daughter”. Her name was Princess Bari and her name literally means “Thrown away or Abandoned Princess”. The Mudang priestesses sing her sacred song, a Muga, to help the souls of the dead into the next cycle of life.

"Bari Gongju Muga” is the “Song of the Abandoned Princess” who did her filial duty and helped save her father and mother, even though they had thrown her away.

In the legend the Princess became a goddess and the Matriach of all the Shaman priesthood. Mudangs sing her song to ask Princess Bari to guide the spirit of the deceased into the next life cycle."

The reason that 'Marie' and her story surprised me was that I began to learn about Domestic Adoptees, In-Country adoptions that I would soon find out numbered in the ten's of thousands. I asked many fellow adoptees just how many Domestic Adoptees there were and no one seemed to know. Molly Holt then told me, "more than 80,000 plus 20,000 Private adoptions, like the Dutch diplomat and his wife, who gave up their Korean girl after bearing 'natural' sons."

In May of 2008, just one year ago, I had pretty much given up finding my birthmother but now "just when I thought I was out...they pulled me back in!" as Al Pacino would say. I became so caught up as I began to get up to speed on the Adoption situation in Korea. I had not even gone to GOA'L meeting since getting married, missing several yearly GOA'L conferences. I learned that more than 87,000 Domestic Adoptees, NOT counting perhaps 20,000 plus Private Adoptees undocumented by the government, are living in the country and 85% of them DON'T KNOW that they were adopted. Korean people still prefer to keep it a secret. I knew Korea had adoption within the family but had no idea there were so many. Molly Holt first told me of these domestic adoption numbers.

Then I read Tobias Hubinette's book, "Comforting an Orphaned Nation", and learned about the Korean's governments repeated attempt to get Korean people to adopt children that are not of their lineage. In 1973 after 'Dear Leader' Kim Il Sung accused the Southern government of 'selling children' the ROK (South) started a program that all government officials SHOULD adopt a child.

There have been many attempts to change the society's views on adopting a child that is not of their bloodline. Dr. David Hyungbok Kim in his book "Who Will Answer..." reports that in 1955 the Adoption Laws of the Republic of Korea stated that a child could be adopted only from a related family member. A Family Registry lists the family name and the region, such as "Kim Hae", means that only a child with the Surname of Kim from the Hae region could be adopted. If the child had the name Kim from another Kim line they would NOT be able to even adopt. Dr. David Kim was the man who told me about my sister and I. He lamented that the thousands of children separated from their parents from the war could not be LEGALLY adopted by Korean people.


To find out late in life that you were adopted is something I cannot imagine. I found websites on Late Discovery Adoptees Late Discovery - Home from America that told the stories of the 20% of adoptees in the USA that are NOT told that they were adopted. Some found out in their forties and fifties, after their parents had died, discovering adoption papers hidden in desks or file cabinettes. For the last year I have studied, joined one group after another, read from every part of the Triad-Adoptive Parents, Birth Family, and Adoptee. I have saved hundreds of documents from newspapers, book reviews, websites from all aspects of the controversy. I wanted to find out the truth, hear from every voice, even the 'angry, hurt, abused, unhappy adoptees'. I needed to hear the Good, Bad, Ugly, Sad, Happy, Successful, ALL of it before I could come to my own conclusions.


'Marie' found out when she tried to give blood for one of her parent's surgery, the nurse bluntly told her. "You Can't give blood...your blood type doesn't match either of your parents. Are you Adopted?" This was only a few years ago.

"Marie never expected to find out she had even one sister, but six? One day a surprise call came from one of them, the sixth sister, who had searched for her, the long lost sister who had been given away to be adopted.Marie had been the unlucky seventh daughter.

Marie was born the same year that my first child was born, my own daughter, born after a wild Christmas holiday with her Filipina mother. Have I shared that yet? For that story please go to Korean War Baby "Tale of Two Women".


The Korean War Baby has met several times with Mission to Promote Adoption in Korea (MPAK)Korean Adoption - Mission to Promote Adoption in Korea (MPAK) leader Steve Morrison. He introduced me to co-founder Mrs. Han Yeonhee and more than 50 families in the Ansan-Anyong-Suwan area who have adopted, many with Open Adoption with the Natural mothers. See the post or Documents available on sidebar on "Openness in Korean Adoptions" to download report by Prof. P. Haynes and Kim Kyungeun. This report tells about the attempts to try Open adoption and the difficulties that happen for all involved.


The Laws have been changing to increase and encourage Domestic Adoptions, raising the age limits to 60, single persons can even adopt, incentives are given, etc. (more to be posted on current Adoption Laws). But laws do not change HEARTS. Domestic adoption still barely exceeds 52% of available babies, who after surviving huge odds of 'elimination by abortion', are born alive and well.

Image via Wikipedia