Family is often seen as the core of our identity, built on shared memories and strong connections. However, for over 141,000 Korean children sent abroad from the 1950s to the 1990s, this foundation was often hidden by secrets, societal pressures, and vast distances. Now, decades later, a significant movement of reunification is unfolding globally, as Korean adoptees in the US and Europe search for their birth families, discovering that this reunion, though miraculous, is far more complex than they ever anticipated.
At the heart of this unfolding story are individuals like Marianne Ok Nielsen, whose initial perception of her own beginnings was one of profound abandonment. For 52 years, Nielsen carried the weight of believing she had been discarded, a baby found on the street in 1973 by police in Daejeon, South Korea. Her formative years in Denmark, within the loving embrace of her adoptive parents, were nonetheless shadowed by this origin story, fostering a deep-seated feeling of unworthiness.
She vividly recalls a time when she would tell friends that she didn’t feel worthy of having children or a family of her own. Nielsen confessed, “I was discarded like garbage. Nobody wanted me… That’s what I was.” This sentiment, born from the belief that her birth mother didn’t want her, led to a desperate attempt to assimilate, to become “more Danish than the Danes,” even avoiding her own reflection in the mirror because she was “trying so desperately to be White.”
The turning point arrived unexpectedly when a four-year-old boy, the son of a man she was dating, innocently asked where her birth mother was. When Nielsen explained the absence of records, the child’s raw empathy struck her deeply: “If somebody had done that to me, I would cry all the time!” It was in that profound moment that Nielsen realized the suppressed grief she had carried, sensing, “Maybe a small baby inside of me has also been crying all the time.
In 2016, a hopeful step forward materialized when she took a DNA test through 325Kamra, a US-based non-profit organization dedicated to assisting Korean adoptees in family reunification. Years passed without a match, a testament to the elusive nature of these quests. Then, last May, everything shifted with a simple text message: “A possible family match has been found.” Her older brother, driven by a long-held hope, had registered his DNA with Korean police, leading to the unimaginable discovery.
“For 51 years, I believed I was abandoned on the street, that I was an orphan. I never imagined in a million years that I had a family, and that they had been searching for me,” Nielsen shared, her words echoing the astonishment and relief felt by countless adoptees. Today, Marianne Ok Nielsen has embraced this newfound connection, choosing to reside in Daejeon, South Korea, to be near her birth family, a journey of identity reclaimed.
Yet, the narrative of reunion is often twinned with stories of deep loss and lingering questions, especially for birth mothers who never stopped searching. Consider the harrowing experience of Han Tae-soon, now 73, who carries the indelible memory of her four-year-old daughter, Kyung-ha, skipping off to play with friends in Cheongju, South Korea, in 1975.
I was heading to the market and left Kyung-ha with a couple of her friends,” Han recounted to CNN. “When I returned, my daughter was gone.” For decades, the laughter of her child was replaced by gnawing emptiness, as Han, then a young woman of 22, would not see Kyung-ha again until both had been weathered by time.
Han’s determined search led her to police stations, where, unbelievably, authorities suggested she consult fortune tellers. Unfazed, she opened a hair salon in Anyang in 1981, placing an old photo of Kyung-ha in the mirror as a constant, public appeal. She reached out to radio stations, distributed flyers, and even made an appearance on a television program in 1990, hoping for a breakthrough.
This television appearance did lead to a tip, but it ultimately resulted in a painful deception. A 20-year-old woman came forward, claiming to be Kyung-ha. Desperate for answers, Han questioned her, and the young woman offered enough seemingly convincing details. “I asked, ‘What does your dad do?’ and she said, ‘He drives a taxi.’ So, I brought her back with me,” Han recounted, clinging to hope. However, her husband immediately recognized the falsehood, telling her, “That’s not Kyung-ha.”
It took two agonizing years for the truth to emerge. As the young woman prepared for her wedding, she confessed, “The moment I saw you, I thought, ‘I wish that woman were my mom,’ so I lied.” It turned out she had been abandoned at an orphanage herself, a heartbreaking parallel. With this admission, she departed, leaving Han to face a renewed wave of despair.
Like Nielsen, Han eventually turned to DNA testing through 325Kamra, which led to a match that would finally unravel the mystery. Her missing daughter, Kyung-ha, was living in the United States, known as Laurie Bender, a name given by her adoptive parents. It was Bender’s child who, nearly a decade ago, had submitted her mother’s DNA to the same agency, unknowingly initiating the journey toward this remarkable reunion.
Han shared her profound surprise: “The idea of adoption, especially international adoption, never crossed my mind.” For all the years she had searched within Korea, the possibility that her daughter had been sent abroad was unfathomable. Laurie Bender’s own account from 2019, shared with a South Korean television network, offered a glimpse into Kyung-ha’s fate: on May 9, 1975, she had “followed a lady onto a train,” ended up at a police station, and was then taken to an orphanage.
Han claims that this unknown woman intentionally lured her four-year-old daughter to a train station in Jecheon, approximately 40 miles from their home, and then abandoned her. Official records show that nine months after her disappearance, in February 1976, Kyung-ha was sent to the US. Her government-issued travel document, which permitted international adoption, shockingly substituted her last name with that of Jane White, the American missionary director of Jecheon Infant Home, and listed Holt Children’s Services’ address as her own.
These individual stories aren’t isolated events but rather pieces of a much larger, intricate puzzle that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Korea has now officially acknowledged. This year, the commission reported on the “mass exportation” of babies, a profitable practice where some infants were sent abroad with “fake names and birth dates” to adoptive parents in at least 11 countries. This marks the first official recognition of the immense scale of this injustice, bringing much-needed attention to a long-suppressed chapter of Korean history.
The commission’s findings are stark: over 141,000 Korean children were adopted by families in the United States and Europe between the 1950s and 1990s. This surge in international adoptions occurred against a backdrop of post-war poverty and societal norms in South Korea that heavily shunned unwed mothers. Many women, facing immense pressure, were coerced into giving up their infants soon after childbirth, while, heartbreakingly, others endured the trauma of having their children stolen.
Central to this system were private adoption agencies, which were entrusted with all adoption-related processes by Korea’s Special Adoption Act for Orphans in 1961. This act, initially aimed at war orphans, later expanded to include babies born to unwed mothers, abandoned infants, and children deemed in need of “protection.” Disturbingly, the commission’s report revealed that these agencies “lost, falsified or fabricated the identities and family information of many children.” The journeys themselves were fraught, with “large numbers of children” enduring “long flights without proper care,” as evidenced by a black-and-white image of infants strapped into airline seats on a flight to Denmark in 1984.
Yooree Kim, now 52, vividly recalls a similar flight to France when she was just 11 years old. She found herself trying to comfort crying babies beside her, stroking their faces and letting her hair brush against their skin—a poignant image of a child trying to nurture other children in a moment of great vulnerability. Kim and her younger brother had experienced a happy early childhood in Korea, but their lives took a dramatic turn after their parents’ divorce.
They moved in with their grandparents, but when their grandmother was diagnosed with tuberculosis, they returned to their mother. Faced with severe financial hardship, their mother made the agonizing decision to place them in a private childcare facility in May 1983. This arrangement was intended to be a temporary one, a brief respite during a difficult time. However, by that Christmas, Kim and her brother found themselves on a flight to France, with their lives irrevocably altered.
Kim was explicitly told that her parents had “abandoned” her, a narrative that undoubtedly intensified the trauma of her sudden displacement. Adding to her profound distress, Kim revealed that she had been subjected to abuse by her adoptive father in France, allegations he denied before his passing. These deeply personal experiences highlight the immense emotional toll this history has inflicted on individuals and families across multiple generations.
Upon their eventual reunion, the challenges are far from over. The profound “cruelty of South Korea’s foreign adoptions” becomes starkly evident as reunited children and mothers struggle with immense communication barriers. Decades of separation have created vast divides in languages and drastically different cultures, requiring immense effort and deep empathy to bridge these gaps.
For Han Tae-soon and her daughter Laurie Bender (Kyung-ha), the language barrier presents a significant obstacle. Imagine the depth of emotion, the decades of longing, finally met with the frustration of being unable to express it fully in shared words. Furthermore, in Marianne Ok Nielsen’s poignant case, the passage of time has been harsh: old age has sadly erased most of her birth mother’s memories of Nielsen’s existence, adding another layer of quiet heartbreak to a long-awaited reunion.
These stories, while deeply personal, are emblematic of a larger societal issue. The efforts of organizations like 325Kamra offer a beacon of hope, leveraging modern technology such as DNA testing to untangle the knots of lost identities and connect families across vast distances. The commitment of birth parents, like Han Tae-soon, who have never ceased their search, and the brave resolve of adoptees, like Marianne Ok Nielsen, to confront their past and seek their roots, are testaments to the enduring power of family bonds.
The recent report by South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is a crucial step toward acknowledging a painful past, offering official validation for the experiences of thousands. While the journey of reconnection is undoubtedly filled with complexities—linguistic divides, cultural adjustments, and the emotional scars of separation—the very act of finding one’s origins provides a powerful sense of closure and self-understanding.
As these families bravely navigate the intricate landscape of rediscovered relationships, their stories illuminate the remarkable resilience of the human spirit. They are not merely reuniting; they are rebuilding, healing, and collectively shaping a more nuanced understanding of identity and belonging. The ongoing dialogues, fueled by these courageous individuals, promise to foster greater empathy and ensure that the lessons from this difficult chapter of history guide a more compassionate future for all.
It is truly inspiring to witness the strength and unwavering determination of those who, against immense odds, pursue the fundamental human need for connection. Their journeys, though challenging, stand as powerful affirmations of hope, reminding us that the ties that bind, even when stretched across oceans and decades, can ultimately be reforged, leading to new beginnings and profound personal peace. The world watches, learns, and cheers them on, recognizing the monumental courage in every step of their extraordinary path.
