South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning
Friday, September 20, 2024
7/6c: pbs.org/frontline, APNews.com, PBS App
10/9c: PBS stations (check local listings), YouTube
& the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel
www.facebook.com/frontline | X (formerly Twitter): @frontlinepbs
Instagram: @frontlinepbs | YouTube: youtube.com/frontline

About 200,000 people around the world were adopted out of South Korea to Western countries over the course of the past seven decades in what is believed to be the largest population of adoptees out of any country. More than half of those adopted ended up in the United States.

But as a new documentary from FRONTLINE and The Associated Press explores, a growing number of adoptees have returned to South Korea as adults only to discover that what they’d been told about their origins was not true.

“Initially, it was denial. … [It] really flipped my world upside down and had me really questioning … ‘Who am I then? If this information is not mine, then where is my information?’” one adoptee told FRONTLINE and The Associated Press.

“We’ve found cases of false identities, fabricated backstories and even stolen children, while investigating allegations of fraud and abuse connected to South Korea’s historic adoption boom,” says AP reporter Kim Tong-hyung, who is featured in the film along with his AP colleague Claire Galofaro.

The result of their reporting is South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning — a stunning, 90-minute documentary that investigates the darker side of South Korea’s adoption program. The film premieres on Friday, September 20 at 10/9c on PBS, YouTube and in the PBS App. The film will also be available to stream on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel. The documentary is part of a larger editorial collaboration between FRONTLINE and the AP that includes a multimedia interactive experience that tells additional stories of Korean adoptees as they search for the truth about their origins.

Directed by FRONTLINE Investigative Journalist Equity Initiative filmmaker Lora Moftah (of Maxine Productions, a part of Sony Pictures Television), South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning examines how South Korea’s leaders promoted an adoption boom despite decades of warnings about problems, how Western governments turned a blind eye, and how the consequences are still playing out today.

The film draws on years of reporting, thousands of pages of documents — some of which had never been made public before — and interviews with those who worked in adoption agencies, officials from South Korea and abroad, and more than 80 adoptees who gave powerful firsthand accounts.

“What do you do when you find out your origin story is marked with grievous injustice?” one adoptee asks in the film.

As the documentary reports, amid a wave of complaints, South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission opened an investigation into possible human rights violations associated with past governments’ handling of foreign adoptions.

In addition to adoptees and birth parents, the film features interviews with those from inside South Korea’s adoption system including a senior official who handled adoption and other child welfare policies, and a former adoption worker who says the agency where she worked put “zero effort” into verifying whether children designated as “abandoned” actually met the criteria. The reporters also spoke to officials from some of the adoption agencies, who have denied systemic wrongdoing. They interviewed Susan Soonkeum Cox — a former senior official from Holt International, an adoption agency that pairs adoptees with families in the West, who is an adoptee herself — who stressed that the overall goal was to find homes for children who would otherwise have grown up in orphanages.

“Has there been some activity that shouldn’t have happened? Probably. We’re human and everybody is different. There’s good social workers. There’s bad social workers,” Cox says. “What I’m talking about is the accusation of systemic, deliberate wrongdoing. That, I reject.”

South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning will be available to watch in full at pbs.org/frontline, at apnews.com and in the PBS App starting Tuesday, September 20, 2024, at 7/6c. It will premiere on PBS stations (check local listings) and on FRONTLINE’s YouTube channel at 10/9c and will also be available on the PBS Documentaries Prime Video Channel.

The documentary is distributed internationally by PBS International. Subscribe to FRONTLINE’s newsletter to get updates on events, podcast episodes and more related to South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning.

Credits
South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning is a FRONTLINE production with Maxine Productions and Sony Pictures Television – Nonfiction (SPTNF) in association with The Associated Press. Written, produced and directed by Maxine Production’s Lora Moftah. Reported by Kim Tong-hyung and Claire Galofaro. The senior producer is Nina Chaudry. The executive producer of Maxine Productions is Mary Robertson. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

About FRONTLINE
FRONTLINE, U.S. television’s longest running investigative documentary series, explores the issues of our times through powerful storytelling. FRONTLINE has won an Academy Award® as well as every major journalism and broadcasting award, including 106 Emmy Awards and 34 Peabody Awards. Visit pbs.org/frontline and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more. FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and is broadcast nationwide on PBS. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen.

About AP
The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. Founded in 1846, AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news in all formats and the essential provider of the technology and services vital to the news business. More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day. Online: www.ap.org.

About Maxine Productions
Founded by Mary Robertson in 2022 through an overall deal with Sony Pictures Television (SPT), Maxine Productions is a film and television production company devoted to the creation of extraordinary, journalist- and filmmaker-driven nonfiction work. The company recently produced the hit docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV (Investigation Discovery), the feature-length documentary JUNE which premiered on Paramount+, and has a slate of upcoming features and limited series in the pipeline, and as well as projects in development with Rolling Stone, Wondery, Buzzfeed, Business Insider, and The Hollywood Reporter. Robertson is an Emmy® Award-winning director and executive producer with credits including the two-time Primetime Emmy Award-nominated Framing Britney Spears and Controlling Britney Spears, as well as other credits including The Weekly (FX and Hulu), Tricky Dick (CNN), Trumped (Showtime), The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth (Showtime), and five films for Frontline on PBS, two of which received Emmy nominations. 

About Sony Pictures Television – Nonfiction
Sony Pictures Television’s nonfiction group is the feature documentary, premium content, and unscripted unit within Sony Pictures Television (SPT). Through ownership interests in or with production companies Sharp Entertainment, The Intellectual Property Corporation (IPC), B17 Entertainment, 19 Entertainment, This Machine, Maxine Productions, UnConventional Entertainment, Brass Monkeys Media, and Resilient Content, the group creates and produces content in every form of programming for audiences worldwide, currently totaling more than 100 series across 35 platforms. Key programs include 19 Entertainment’s global hit American Idol for ABC; Sharp Entertainment’s 90 Day Fiancé franchise for TLC; IPC’s Emmy^®-winning hit documentary series Leah Remini: Scientology & the Aftermath for A&E, Indian Matchmaking and Night Stalker for Netflix, Secrets of Playboy for A&E, We’re Here for HBO, and Selena + Chef for Max and Food Network; and B17 Entertainment’s Thanks a Million for Roku and The Final Straw for ABC. Additionally, 19 Recordings has launched the music careers of platinum artists Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Daughtry, Phillip Phillips, Lauren Alaina, Gabby Barrett, and Chayce Beckham among many others.

Press Contact:
FRONTLINE: Anne Husted, Associate Director of Publicity, Communications and Awards | frontlinemedia@wgbh.org | 6173005312