Free Republic

Nearly 400 South Koreans adopted as children by families in the West have requested South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission investigate their adoptions through Friday’s application deadline, as Seoul faces growing pressure to reckon with a child export frenzy driven by dictatorships that ruled the country until the 1980s. The commission on Thursday said it decided to investigate 34 cases among the 51 adoptees who first submitted their applications in August, which could possibly develop into the country’s most far-reaching inquiry into foreign adoptions yet. A total of 63 adoptees from the United States, Europe and Australia submitted applications to...

The little girl wouldn't let go...It didn't matter that she had only met him 12 days earlier...What mattered was that he had held her and that he was going to bring her home, to a quiet cul-de-sac in Northern Virginia, where the shy 4-year-old would live with him, his wife and the 6-year-old boy they had adopted... "Papa, don't go!" she screamed in Cantonese after Scruggs tried to hand her over to the foster family that would care for her until he could return...Finally Scruggs slipped out the door, a day after his wife, Candace Litchford, had made the same...

BOSTON --Chinese policies aimed primarily at keeping its children out of the homes of same-sex couples has helped cause a 6 percent drop in adoptions in Massachusetts in the last year. The University of Massachusetts Center for Adoption Research found that the adoption of Chinese babies in the state has declined by 17 percent, the Boston Globe reported Monday. Overall there were 161 fewer adoptions in Massachusetts in 2004 than the year before, the center found. While researchers pinpointed several factors that contributed to the drop, they determined that the policies of the Chinese government had the largest impact. In...

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) today announced that he and his wife Abigail have adopted a son. Alexander Charles Blunt, 18 months, was born near Moscow, Russia, in 2004. "Abby and I are so glad to add this little guy to our family," Blunt said. "So far, Charlie has spent every day of his young life in an orphanage or hospital. "We are so fortunate and so pleased to be able to share our lives and opportunities with him." The Blunts had worked with a Texas-based agency for a year prior to the adoption. Blunt has three adult children...

Apr 18 2006 1:45PM Twelve U.S. adoption organizations might be banned in Russia MOSCOW. April 18 (Interfax) - The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has demanded that several U.S. adoption organizations working in Russia be closed. "Owing to failure to comply with accreditation terms, including the reporting on the living conditions of Russian children adopted by foreign citizens, we recommend early termination of the accreditation of foreign adoption organizations," Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinskyi said in a communication addressed to Education and Science Minister Andrei Fursenko. Twelve U.S. adoption organizations are mentioned in the communication.