37page

37 pecially those made from outside the country, were difficult because Holt International Chil- dren’s Services and Holt Children’s Services of Korea (Holt-Korea) are separate organi- zations. “The Ministry of Health and Welfare grants money to the major adoption agencies for post-adoption services, so those agencies are bound to follow the mandate to provide af- fordable access to adoption records,” it says, describing such adoption agencies as brokers in the adoption process. “The children they send to foreign countries are often passed on through smaller, local adoption agencies. And those agencies are located in many different countries, provinces and states — each with their own laws about records access — and none of those lesser adoption agencies have to follow Korean law about post-adoption ser- vices and won’t, because they aren’t being subsidized.” negoTiaTing The barriers When adoptees come to Korea to continue their search, it does not necessarily speed up or simplify the process. In her four years in Korea, Leith did not find her birth family. After encountering huge difficulties when trying to obtain information from her agency, Holt, she began investigating the laws and policies on record-keeping and eventually founded an in- ternational advocacy group, Korean Adoptees for Fair Records Access, which she describes as a platform to share knowledge about how to access records. She said she became an activist after Holt withheld information from her file. “I was disgusted with the maze we adoptees must maneuver through to receive the little history about ourselves that exists in their possession, and that international adoption continues over a half century beyond its inception.” Many adoptees have become activists to combat the systems that they believe are keeping them from accessing their records. “Almost all of the adoptees (in Korea) are interested in expanding access and tools to assist their searches, fair and accurate media portrayals of their population which promote their humanity and improving Korean soci- ‘to be considered Korean by Korean nationals, you need to be a full-blooded Korean, live in Korea for more than 20 years, have family here that you actually KnoW and interact With Who are full-blooded Koreans, speaK the language fluently, and plan on living here for the rest of your life While folloWing the social norms. i don’t KnoW Why it tooK me a long time to come to this realization. i’m never going to be Korean. people still call me “foreigner” all the time.’ Sarah Ishida Total 163,782 Canada 2,260 United States 110,246 Sweden 9,173 Denmark 8,723 Germany 2,352 Netherlands 4,099 Belgium 3,697 Luxembourg 578 Italy 387 England 72 Switzerland 1,111 Australia 3,402 Norway 6,339 France 11,126 w h e r e k o r e a n b a b i e s a r e e x p o r T e d i n t e r n a t i o n a l a d o p t i o n s , m a i n c o u n t r i e s 1 9 5 3 - 2 0 0 9 Source: Ministry of Health and Welfare Note: Date ranges vary. The fgure excludes private, illegal and military adoptions, and most estimates put the number at more than 200,000.