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Peter Moller, co-founder of the Danish Korean Rights Group pauses during an interview with The Korea Times at the newspaper's office in Seoul, Sept. 30. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Adoptees say their documents are riddled with misinformation, fabrications

By Lee Hyo-jin

Peter Moller, 48, who was adopted to Denmark from South Korea in 1974, reached out to Korean adoption agency Holt International for the first time in 2011 to search for his roots.

Holt initially told the Danish adoptee that he was born in Seoul. But in subsequent letters, the adoption agency said he was actually born in Daejeon. Moller was then told that his biological mother gave birth to him in Nonsan, South Chungcheong Province on March 16, 1974, which happened to be the same day she brought him to the adoption agency in Seoul.

"How is this possible?" Moller thought. "What is the possibility that a woman who just gave birth to a child could travel across the country to give away the infant?"

Speculating that his adoption documents could have been falsified, he began digging for the truth. Moller soon found out that he was not alone.

Dozens of Danes who had been adopted from Korea in the 1970s and 1980s were having similar speculations that their documents had been riddled with misinformation and fabrications.

In 2021, these adoptees established the Danish Korean Rights Group (DKRG) to demand that Korean authorities launch formal investigations into corrupt practices by two Seoul-based adoption agencies which sent children to Demark ― Holt and the Korea Social Services (KSS)

"In the beginning, they (adoption agencies) say that you were abandoned and they have no knowledge of a family. But if you keep on pressuring them for more information, they actually have quite detailed information about family, age, occupations, siblings and so on," Moller, an attorney and co-founder of DKRG said during a recent interview with The Korea Times.

"For instance, you were told that you were found in the streets and handed over to the police, but suddenly they give you another story that your biological mother was very young and unwed, so she had to give you away." he said. "But every time the information changes, it changes a little bit of your identity."

The KSS has admitted to the fabrication of documents in some cases, he said, showing a letter sent by the agency to a Danish adoptee which stated, "In fact, it (the adoption file) was made up just for the adoption procedures."

A letter sent from the Korea Social Services to Danish adoptee Louise Kwang reads that her adoption file was made just for the adoption procedures. Courtesy of the Danish Korean Rights Group