{"id":320084,"date":"2024-10-10T14:39:07","date_gmt":"2024-10-10T19:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=320084"},"modified":"2024-10-09T13:54:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-09T18:54:00","slug":"south-korean-mother-sues-government-daughter-adoption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/south-korean-mother-sues-government-daughter-adoption\/","title":{"rendered":"Elderly South Korean mother sues government for sending daughter overseas for adoption"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

In 1976, four-year-old Shin Gyeong-ha (now Laurie Bender) <\/span>was lured away by a stranger<\/span><\/a> near her home in Cheongju, South Korea. The strange woman told the young Shin that her family <\/span>\u201c<\/span>didn\u2019t want her anymore<\/span><\/a>\u201d<\/span> because her mother had had another baby. Abandoned 50 miles away after a train ride, police placed her with an orphanage \u2014 and months later she was sent to America where she was adopted and lived for over 40 years before discovering the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n

South Korean authorities and adoption agencies have recently come under <\/span>intense scrutiny and condemnation<\/span><\/a> by adoptees, birth-parents and adopted families. Han and Bender\u2019s story is not the only one. Information in the Associated Press and Frontline (PBS) documentation reveals years of coordinated efforts by the South Korean government, wealthy nations, and adoption agencies to place \u201caround 200,000 Korean children\u201d using unseemly or dishonest means \u2014 such as deceiving parents or claiming children had died.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n