South Korea grants extension to truth commission as investigators examine foreign adoption cases

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s presidential office said Monday it approved a request by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission for a one-year extension after investigators sought more time to examine human rights violations linked to past military governments, including the widespread falsifying of child origins that fueled a foreign adoption boom in the 1970s and ‘80s. Denmark’s only overseas adoption agency said this month it is “winding down” its facilitation of international adoptions from several countries, and Sweden’s only adoption agency last year said it was halting adoptions from South Korea. South Korea’s commission has been interviewing adoptees who have applied for investigation and examining government records and paperwork produced by South Korean adoption agencies. Modeled after the South African commission established in the 1990s to expose apartheid-era injustices, South Korea launched its Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2006 to investigate past human rights violations, including civilian massacres during the 1950-53 Korean War, in an effort that continued until 2010.