Mom Who Searched For 44 Years Finds Kidnapped Daughter Was Adopted Abroad, South Korea Gets Sued

Imagine spending decades doing the same two things over and over: waking up, and wondering where your child is.
Not “How’s school?” or “Did you eat?”just where. For one South Korean mother, that question stretched for
44 years until a modern miracle (and a DNA kit) finally cut through the fog of paperwork, bureaucracy, and
heartbreak.

The reunion should’ve been the end of a nightmare. Instead, it became the beginning of something bigger:
a lawsuit aimed at a government, an adoption agency, and an institution that helped turn a kidnapped little girl into
an “orphan” on paperthen sent her abroad. And it’s happening right as South Korea faces intensifying pressure to
reckon with a long, complicated history of overseas adoptionsone that includes both life-changing opportunities and
deeply troubling allegations of fraud, coercion, and identity erasure.

This story is about one mother and one daughterbut it also shines a bright light on the systems that decided, decades
ago, that children could be moved across borders with the kind of confidence normally reserved for shipping containers.
(Spoiler: children are not containers, and the human heart does not accept tracking numbers as closure.)

The Case That Turned a Private Nightmare Into a Public Lawsuit

A day in 1975 that split a family in two

In May 1975, a 4-year-old girl disappeared. Her mother, Han Tae-soon, reported her missing and began a search that
became a life’s work. Years passed, then decades. Posters. Visits. Phone calls. A thousand small “maybe this time”
moments that ended the same way: not this time.

The girlborn Shin Gyeong-hadidn’t simply vanish. Authorities later determined she had been taken and then abandoned
in another city. From there, she entered a child welfare pipeline that, in the 1970s, could move surprisingly fast
once a child had a file, a new label, and an adoptable story.

How paperwork can rewrite a life

According to reporting on the case, after the child was found abandoned, police placed her in Jechon Children’s Home.
Her records were changed: a new name appeared, and her background was presented as if she were an abandoned orphan.
In February 1976less than a year after she went missingshe was sent to the United States for adoption, where she
grew up as Laurie Bender.

The mother didn’t know. The daughter didn’t know. And that’s part of what makes the story so haunting:
the truth existed somewhere, but it lived inside institutions that either couldn’t connect the dotsor didn’t try very hard to.

The reunion came first. The lawsuit came after.

In 2019, mother and daughter were finally connected through DNA testing supported by a nonprofit that helps reunite
Korean families separated by adoption. After meeting, Han Tae-soon filed a lawsuit seeking damages and accountability
from the South Korean government, Holt Children’s Services (the country’s largest adoption agency), and the facility
that housed her daughter as a child.

The suit isn’t just about money. It’s about a formal recognition that what happened wasn’t “unfortunate,”
“confusing,” or “a historical oopsie.” It was preventable. And, in Han’s view, it was enabled.

How a Missing Child Became an “Orphan”

One of the most unsettling lessons in this case is that a child’s legal identity can be reshaped by forms, stamps,
and assumptionsespecially in an era when oversight was weaker and incentives were complicated.

When a child is found without a guardian, the state has a duty to search for family and protect the child’s rights.
That should include rigorous attempts to identify relatives, preserve accurate records, and ensure no one profits from
a rushed “solution.” In practice, the process has often been messierparticularly during periods when overseas adoption
was treated as a socially acceptable safety valve for poverty, stigma, and underfunded welfare systems.

In Han’s case, she says she did what a parent is told to do: report immediately, follow up, keep looking, keep asking.
Yet the system still produced an outcome where her daughter’s adoption proceeded under a false narrative.
That raises the kind of questions governments hate: Who had the responsibility to check? Who failed? And who benefited
from a child being quickly categorized as adoptable?

The Bigger Pattern: South Korea’s Overseas Adoption Boom

South Korea is one of the most significant sources of international adoptees in modern history. Over decades,
roughly 200,000 Korean children were adopted abroad, many to families in the United States and Western Europe.
The program grew over time, especially during the 1970s and 1980s, when thousands of children per year were sent overseas.

The story often toldboth inside and outside Koreawas simple: poor country, war legacy, orphans need homes, foreign
families step in. But investigations and testimonies have increasingly challenged that tidy narrative. Many adoptees
have reported learning, years later, that their paperwork contained inaccuracies, contradictions, or outright fabrications.
Some birth families say they never consented. Some mothers say they were misled or pressured. Some records simply don’t add up.

And when the record is wrong, the consequences are lifelong: identity confusion, medical history gaps, lost language,
severed family connections, and the emotional cost of realizing your origin story may have been written by someone who
never met youor who met you as a “case,” not a kid.

The Reckoning: Investigations, Findings, and “Yes, This Is a Big Deal”

Journalism that pulled at the thread

A major investigation by The Associated Press, documented in collaboration with PBS FRONTLINE, brought renewed attention
to allegations of widespread problems in South Korea’s historic adoption systemespecially the years when demand for
adoptable infants was high and oversight lagged behind.

The reporting described patterns that adoptees and advocates have discussed for years: falsified identities, missing or
manipulated records, and systems that moved children abroad with a speed that looks impressive only if you forget the
subject is a human being.

Government inquiries and uncomfortable conclusions

South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission also examined adoptee complaints and reported that fraud and abuse
had tainted parts of the overseas adoption program. In some cases, records were falsified to label children as orphans
despite living family members. Investigators described serious systemic issues, while adoptees called for stronger remedies.

But even investigations can run into politics, deadlines, and institutional reluctance. The commission later suspended
its probe with hundreds of cases unresolvedleaving many adoptees and families stuck in limbo, still waiting for answers
that may only exist in filing cabinets that no one wants to open.

Why Han Tae-soon’s Lawsuit Matters Beyond One Family

Lawsuits like this are often called “historic” because they do something rare: they try to convert moral injury into
legal responsibility. Han’s case has been described as one of the first known suits by a Korean birth parent seeking
damages from both the government and an adoption agency over an allegedly wrongful overseas adoption.

That matters because international adoption systems have traditionally treated birth parents as a footnotesomeone who
“couldn’t care for the child,” someone “unknown,” someone “not in the picture.” But Han is very much in the picture.
She’s been in it for 44 years, holding it up to the light, asking why the world couldn’t see what she never stopped seeing:
my child is still my child.

If courts take such claims seriously, the implications ripple outward. Agencies may face greater scrutiny. Governments may
be forced to revisit old practices. Record access and preservation could become a bigger priority. And familiesboth birth
and adoptivemay finally get more honest accounting of what went wrong and why.

DNA, Databases, and the New Era of Reunions

It’s hard to overstate how much consumer DNA testing has changed adoption reunions. For decades, people relied on the
accuracy of paper records. But DNA doesn’t care if your file says you’re “abandoned,” “orphaned,” or “found near a market.”
DNA just says, “Here’s your match. Good luck with the emotions.”

Organizations like 325Kamra have helped connect Korean adoptees and birth families by making DNA testing and matching more
accessible. That kind of work doesn’t just reunite individuals; it challenges systems that depended on sealed files and
vague narratives. It’s hard to sustain a story built on “unknown” when genetics is standing there with a name tag and receipts.

South Korea’s Policy Pivot: Phasing Out Foreign Adoptions

While cases like Han’s move through the courts, South Korea has also signaled major policy changes. In late 2025,
officials announced plans to phase out foreign adoptions over several years, aiming to reach zero by 2029 at the latest.
The government framed the shift as part of strengthening child welfare and moving adoption into a more public framework,
while U.N. investigators urged stronger truth-finding and remedies for past abuses.

The numbers show how much the landscape has already changed: South Korea approved foreign adoptions of 24 children in 2025,
down from around 2,000 in 2005 and an annual average of more than 6,000 during the 1980s.
Policy reforms over the yearsincluding a 2011 law that reinstated judicial oversight of foreign adoptionsalso contributed
to the decline.

Ending foreign adoptions doesn’t erase history. But it does acknowledge something important: the old model wasn’t just
“imperfect.” For many people, it was harmfuland the harm didn’t end at the airport.

What Could Change Next

1) Record access that treats adoptees like owners of their stories

Many adoptees want full access to their records and the ability to correct inaccuracies. That requires transparency,
preservation, and a commitment to trutheven when the truth is embarrassing.

2) Real support, not symbolic statements

Truth-finding matters, but so do practical supports: mental health services, translation help, legal assistance,
and pathways to citizenship or dual nationality where relevant.

3) Accountability across borders

International adoption involved sending and receiving countries, agencies, courts, and diplomats. That means responsibility
can’t be isolated. If systems failed, multiple actors may have played a roleby action, inaction, or convenient silence.

Specific Examples of the Broader Legal and Human Impact

One widely reported example is Korean adoptee Adam Crapser, whose case highlighted how failures in adoption processing
and citizenship follow-through can lead to devastating outcomes. His legal battles against agencies and the Korean government
drew attention to systemic gapsespecially around oversight and long-term responsibility after placement.

Cases like Han’s and Crapser’s differ in details, but they share a common thread: adoption isn’t a single event.
It’s a lifelong legal and human relationshipone that demands safeguards before, during, and long after a child is placed.

9 Practical Takeaways for Families Navigating Adoption Records Today

1. Start with what you know, not what you were told. Gather every document you havebirth records, agency
   paperwork, immigration forms, court documents, and any letters or notes.
2. Expect inconsistenciesand treat them as clues. Conflicting names, dates, or locations can be frustrating,
   but they often point to where the story changed.
3. Use DNA as a parallel path, not a last resort. Genetic matching can help confirm or challenge paper records.
4. Find community support. Adoptee and birth family networks can help interpret records, translate terms, and
   share strategies for respectful outreach.
5. Document your process. Keep a timeline of requests, responses, and findings. Bureaucracy loves forgetting;
   timelines help you remember.
6. Prepare emotionally for partial answers. Some records are missing or wrong. Some relatives may not be ready.
   Support systems matter.
7. Be careful with assumptions. “Orphan” in a file may reflect a category, not reality.
8. Consider legal advice for complex cases. Especially when identity errors or potential wrongdoing appears.
9. Honor everyone’s humanity. Birth parents, adoptees, and adoptive families can carry different truths at the same
   time. Compassion doesn’t weaken accountabilityit strengthens it.

Voices From the Search: of Real-World Experiences Around Stories Like This

When people hear “44 years,” they often picture a straight line: a mother searching, then a reunion, then relief.
In real life, it’s more like walking through a house of mirrors while carrying a suitcase labeled “Hope,” except the label
keeps changing fonts.

Birth parents who search for decades describe a specific kind of exhaustion: not the tiredness of a long day, but the
tiredness of an unanswered question that follows you into every day. Some say they learned to scan faces in crowds without
realizing they were doing itat bus stops, in markets, in family photos of strangers. The mind becomes a detective because
the heart refuses to accept an unsolved case. And when they do find a lead, it can feel both thrilling and terrifying:
thrilling because the story might finally move forward, terrifying because forward could mean pain.

Adoptees who discover their records may be inaccurate often describe it as losing the floor beneath a room they’ve lived in
their whole life. Even adoptees who love their adoptive families can feel shaken by the idea that their origin story was
stitched togethersometimes sloppily, sometimes deliberately. One person might feel angry, another might feel numb, and
another might feel guilty for even asking questions. And often, they cycle through all three before lunch.

Then there’s the emotional math of reunion. People expect tears and hugs (and yes, those happen), but they don’t always expect
the awkwardness: language barriers, cultural differences, missing shared memories, and the strange reality of meeting someone
who is both deeply familiar and entirely new. Families sometimes describe reunions as joyful and grief-filled at the same time
because you’re not only meeting; you’re also mourning everything that should have been.

Adoptive parents can also be pulled into the reckoning in unexpected ways. Some learn, years later, that the documents they
trusted may have been wrong. Many feel defensive at firstbecause no one likes being told the happy story might have a
painful backstory. But others describe a shift once they listen closely: the desire to support their child’s right to truth,
even if that truth complicates the family narrative. In the healthiest situations, curiosity replaces fear. The question becomes
not “What does this say about us?” but “What does this mean for them?”

And there’s bureaucracythe ever-present extra character in every adoption story. People recount writing letters into silence,
getting responses that read like photocopied shrug emojis, and being passed between offices as if accountability were a hot potato.
The experience can feel absurd: your identity reduced to a case number, your family history treated like a misplaced receipt.
That absurdity is sometimes where humor shows upnot because the situation is funny, but because humans use humor to breathe
when grief tightens the room.

In stories like Han Tae-soon’s, what stands out is not only the endurance of one mother, but the way modern toolsDNA,
databases, and community networksare finally doing what systems should have done decades ago: connect people to the truth.
The lawsuit is one more way of saying: this wasn’t just a personal tragedy. It was a public failure. And public failures
deserve public answers.

Conclusion

Han Tae-soon’s story forces an uncomfortable but necessary conversation. International adoption can be life-changing and
lovingbut only when it is ethical, transparent, and rooted in the rights of the child and the dignity of families.
When a kidnapped child can be transformed into an “orphan” and sent abroad in months, the problem isn’t just one bad actor.
It’s a system that made that outcome possible.

As South Korea faces lawsuits, investigations, and global pressurewhile planning to phase out foreign adoptionsone thing
is clear: the era of “don’t ask too many questions” is ending. And for thousands of adoptees and birth families, the next
chapter won’t be written by paperwork alone. It will be written by truth.