A 70-year-old South Korean woman, Han Tae-soon, has filed a lawsuit against the South Korean government, the prominent adoption agency Holt Children’s Services, and the Jechon Children’s Home, alleging their negligence led to the wrongful adoption of her daughter, Laurie Bender, in 1976, The Associated Press reports.
Han’s lawsuit, filed on Monday, marks the first known instance of a Korean birth parent seeking damages for the wrongful adoption of their child. It stems from the harrowing story of Bender’s abduction at the age of four, a story that was featured in an Associated Press investigation last month.
According to Han, Bender was kidnapped in 1975 after a woman falsely told her that her family didn’t want her anymore. After taking her on a train ride, the woman abandoned Bender in the city of Jechon, 50 miles away from her home.
Despite reporting her daughter’s disappearance to the police and conducting a tireless search, Han says that the authorities failed to adequately investigate Bender’s case. Furthermore, she accuses Holt Children’s Services of facilitating the adoption without properly verifying Bender’s background, despite her repeated visits to the agency seeking information about her daughter.
Han claims that the Jechon Children’s Home, where Bender was placed after being abandoned, made no effort to find her parents. In Bender’s adoption papers, she was falsely described as an abandoned orphan with no known parents, and she was given a new Korean name, Baik Kyong Hwa, before being sent to the United States in February 1976.
“The government was responsible for failing to prevent the adoption of my daughter,” Han stated outside the Seoul Central District Court. “I spent over 40 years searching for her, but the adoption agency and orphanage never made any effort to find her real parents.”
The lawsuit seeks approximately 600 million won ($445,000) in damages and names Han, her husband, and two of her younger children as plaintiffs.
The South Korean Justice Ministry and Holt Children’s Services have not yet commented on the lawsuit.
This case could re-ignite the debate on the questionable practices of South Korea’s adoption program during the 1970s and 1980s, a period when thousands of children were sent to the West annually. The program has faced criticism for its lack of transparency and alleged ethical shortcomings, including accusations of child trafficking and falsified paperwork.
