When is Australia going to step up and conduct a thorough and independent investigation of our intercountry adoption past?! I’ve been taking impacted adoptees to meet the federal government to ask for specific supports and an investigation for years but to no avail. This has been well documented in my report to the UN Special Rapporteur in October 2023.

Despite the concerns about South Korean adoptions and ICAV meeting with the Australian federal government (DSS) in early 2023 about illegal adoptions, then later separately Korean Australian adoptee representatives also met with DSS because of the submissions from some of them into the Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), the Australian federal government still did nothing. Even now the adoption program with South Korea remains open and listed on their website!

The program with Korea has not been shut by the Australia government. It’s only the adoption agency in Korea, Eastern Social Welfare, who has advised Australia they are no longer sending children here. Australia continues to do nothing to investigate their role in closing a blind eye nationally to the trafficking going on for decades from Sth Korea.

But what about the other countries that have exposed these similar issues before the Korean TRC? A clear example is the Taiwanese adoptees from the Julie Chu trafficking ring. We have at least 40 of them sent here via the Julie Chu ring which resulted in her being sent to prison in Taiwan for her leadership in that crime. Yet nothing was or has been done for the victims to this day on either the Taiwanese or Australian ends.

Taiwan still has a current and open program of intercountry adoption with Australia despite not being a Hague signatory and this history with Australia. It does not make any common sense why we would continue to take children from a country who openly prosecuted one trafficker but does nothing to right the wrongs for the victims impacted. On the Australian side, how can we ignore that these adoptees are victims who are now Australian citizens?! How can we consider adoption to be ethical and to continue to go on with business as usual when illegal adoption cases have been proven but victims remain unacknowledged and unsupported?! This is only one example of Australia closing a blind eye to its trafficking history in intercountry adoption.

I can name others – the Vietnam adoptions: the government sanctioned mass trafficking of Operation Babylift. Most of those children were rushed out and had no checks or balances on their identities or relinquishment and in that rush, documentation has been fabricated to facilitate the adoptions, just like what we have now validated for South Korean adoptions en-masse. The impacts are huge as we have almost the whole cohort of the children from Vietnam who cannot trace their families due to fabricated or missing documentation.

I could detail the Indian adoptions from Preet Mandhir, the Ethiopian adoptions with Koala House, the Sri Lankan adoptions with baby farms from the 1980s to 90s, the Colombian and Chilean adoptions. How many scandals has Australia has witnessed over the years but yet our state and federal governments turn a blind eye and continue on with the same business? Sometimes they’ve closed a program such as India – only to reopen it a year or two later but again, with nothing done for the victims that were the reason why the program was shut.

Now with events like the hugely publicised Korean TRC, the victims continue to grow in number, awareness and activity! The longer it’s denied and unacknowledged, the more we get angry because these wrongs have not been recognised nor supported adequately. The bare minimum would be to properly fund and provide supports. Australia still fails to provide a comprehensive search, reunion and DNA service that helps us find our families in our birth countries.

It is time for a national truth telling investigation.

Attached is a briefing paper and a more in-depth paper highlighting why its time for Australia to conduct its own investigation into our history of intercountry adoption. These were prepared for Senator Linda Reynolds by Lynelle Long with collaboration from Samara James in Jan 2025. It is timely now since the media is finally giving us some air time, to help spell out what is overdue and much needed.

Resources

Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission Initial Outcome

Calls for Australia to investigate its Korean adoption past

South Korea acknowledges human rights of thousands of adopted children were violated

Australians caught up in a Korean adoption scandal

Pippa came to Australia in a “mass export” of children. She wants answers about her birth