The AUSKRG formed in November 2022 in response to the many Korean adoptees who have expressed deep concerns over the way their adoptions were facilitated by Eastern Social Welfare Society (prev. Eastern Child Welfare Society), and the lack of access to their histories and origins. We have strong reasons to suspect many of the grievances and frustrations Korean adoptees have individually faced are due to systemic issues in Korea’s overseas adoption program. 

On 9 December 2022, the AUSKRG submitted a group application, along with several individual cases, to South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We believe it is vital that an investigation into Eastern’s overseas adoptions be launched alongside the Commission’s investigation into adoption agencies Holt and KSS. We believe Eastern was not exempt from the issues that have been identified and raised by the Danish Korean Rights Group regarding these two agencies.

These issues, which impact many in our group, include but are not limited to:

• being made an ‘orphan’ on paper despite having living parents;
• being sent overseas with the identity and paperwork of another child, and being subsequently reunited with the ‘wrong’ Korean family; and
• discovering our Korean families were lied to by Eastern and/or did not give consent to one’s adoption.

In 2023, the AUSKRG aims to collect and share resources among adoptee communities, and support the Commission’s investigation should they decide to take our case. We continue to work collaboratively with the Danish Korean Rights Group – whose historic efforts have paved the way – as well as SKAN, CAFE Belgium, NLKRG [etc.] whose aim is to spotlight korean adoption as a system.