Understanding International Adoption
A guide for adult adoptees who want to situate their own story within a broader context.
This guide does not aim to convince or to answer personal questions. It points toward resources for understanding how international adoption works, why it exists in this form, and what it means as a political, historical and economic system.
Introduction
International adoption is often presented as an act of love. It is also a global system, shaped by state policies, economic interests, and structural inequalities that reach far beyond individual families.
For many adult adoptees, understanding this system is not about questioning their own story, but about placing it in a larger context. This guide offers entry points into that reading, in French and English, across formats and levels of engagement.
Each resource was selected for the perspective it brings. Some are written by adoptees; others by historians, journalists, and researchers. All take seriously the same underlying question: how was this system built, and to what end?
I. How it all began
ORIGINS AND HISTORY
Mass international adoption is a recent phenomenon, born after World War II and amplified by the Korean War.
It did not emerge from a natural humanitarian impulse: it was constructed, politically and institutionally.
South Korea was the first major sending country. Its international adoption programme, created in the 1950s, served as a model (and a laboratory) for all the systems that followed.
II. The system
ECONOMICS AND INTERESTS AT STAKE
Intermediaries, agencies, states, families, churches: many stakeholders took interests in international adoption. These resources examine the economic and institutional dimensions that family narratives most often erase.
III. Colonial context
WHAT ADOPTION OWES TO COLONIAL HISTORY
International adoption developed in a context shaped by global inequalities inherited from colonisation. These inequalities (between rich and poor countries, between birth mothers and adoptive families, between “available” children and the families that receive them) are not accidents. They are structural.
Several of the following texts are written by researchers who are themselves adoptees or from sending countries. This is not a coincidence: those who have lived the system from the inside are often the first to name its colonial dimensions.
IV. Abuses and scandals
The abuses in international adoption are not isolated accidents. They have been documented in +20 countries, across several decades, by journalists, official commissions, researchers, and adoptees themselves.
OFFICIAL & INSTITUTIONAL REPORTS
DOCUMENTED CASES, COUNTRY BY COUNTRY
South Korea
The world’s largest programme
TV Documentary
2025
Korea’s Fake Orphans. How adoptions to USA and Sweden turned children into commodities
Directed by CNA Insider
An investigative documentary examining how Korean children were falsely declared orphaned so they could be adopted to the United States and Sweden. Fabricated files, birth mothers who had no idea their children would leave the country. One of the most precise documents on the Korean system’s mechanics.
Documentary
2010
In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee
Directed by Deann Borshay Liem
Deann Borshay Liem discovers she was adopted under the identity of another child, Cha Jung Hee, whose records were substituted for hers. A documented case of identity substitution at the heart of the Korean system. A devastating film about falsification as ordinary practice.
Documentary
2019
Geographies of Kinship: The Korean Adoption Story
Directed by Deann Borshay Liem
A sweeping documentary on the history of Korean adoption — from Cold War origins to the contemporary movement for adoptee rights. Archives, testimonies, and a perspective spanning seventy years.
Documentary
2017
Forget Me Not
Directed by Sun Hee Engelstoft
A personal documentary by Korean-Danish filmmaker Sun Hee Engelstoft, who searches for her birth mother in Korea. A film about searching for origins, but also about what the Korean system demands of birth mothers and their children sent abroad.
Investigative article
2022
Korean adoptees demand accountability
Written by Nicolas Rocca, Médiapart
A Médiapart investigation following adult Korean adoptees sent to European and American families, now organised to demand accountability from the Korean government. A document on the contemporary rights movement. (In French)
Memoir
2016
Ghost of Sangju
Written by Soojung Jo
A memoir about searching for a birth mother and confronting the Korean adoption industry — its intermediaries, its silences, its incomplete records. A courageous, documented account from the inside.
Mali and France
A recent scandal
Documentary
2022
Investigation: In Mali and elsewhere, children are being “stolen” for adoption in France
By Laureline Savoye, Morgane Le Cam (Le Monde)
An investigative reportage examining adoption fraud from Mali and other countries, documenting how children were stolen from their biological families for adoption. A key piece of investigative journalism covering multiple adoption fraud contexts beyond the Malian case. (In French)
Article
2023
International adoption: forged documents and abused parents in Mali
By Émilie Trevert (Le Point)
Investigative article on falsified adoption documents from Mali and living biological parents who did not consent to relinquishment. A document of specific irregularities in the French-Malian adoption chain, useful for adoptees from Mali or their families seeking to understand what happened institutionally. (In French)
Article
2020
Illegal adoption scandal: “It was like Amazon for adopting a little Malian boy”
Written by Anne Vidalie (L’Express)
An L’Express investigative article describing the Mali adoption scandal through the testimony of a key witness who describes it as the ‘Amazon of children’. A detailed piece of journalism exposing the commercial logic behind fraudulent adoptions from Mali to France. (In French)
Article
2020
In Mali, a former judge continues to speak out against fraudulent adoptions
Written by Coralie Pierret (RFI)
An article reporting on a former Malian magistrate who has continued to denounce fraudulent adoption practices years after the initial revelations. A document of ongoing accountability efforts in Mali, useful for adoptees from Mali who want to understand the current state of justice processes in their country of origin. (In French)
Article
2022
The “stolen children” scandal: the misconduct of a French organization at the center of a criminal investigation
Written by Morgane Le Cam (Le Monde)
A Le Monde investigative article on the scandal of ‘stolen’ children in the Mali adoption context, examining the history and workings of a French adoption association accused of systematic fraud. A key piece of journalism in uncovering the institutional dimension of the Mali scandal. (In French)
Sri Lanka
Industrial-scale fraud
Documentary
2022
The stolen babies of Sri Lanka
Envoyé Spécial, France 2
A France 2 documentary exposing the systematic illegal sale of babies in Sri Lanka for international adoption. Local intermediaries, foreign agencies, corrupted authorities, and thousands of children whose records are fictions.
Documentary
2023
Confronting the Painful Secrets of International Adoption
By NRK
A Norwegian public television documentary exposing systematic fraudulent adoptions from Sri Lanka, with testimonies from biological families and adoptees. Norway is one of the countries whose Sri Lankan adoptions have been among the most thoroughly documented as problematic.
Memoir
2022
Het verdriet van Sri Lanka
Directed by Sanne van Rossen
A personal investigation documenting the systematic falsification of Sri Lankan adoption files sent to the Netherlands. The author traces their own story and that of other adoptees whose files were entirely fabricated. A book about what it feels like to discover that your story is an institutional lie. (In Dutch)
Memoir
2019
The Elephant’s Tears. A victim of Child Trafficking
Written by Emilie Ducrot
The testimony of a woman who discovers after her adoption that she was a victim of child trafficking. A rare account that directly names the criminal dimension of international adoption, and its identity consequences. (In French).
Report
2020
Adoptions of children from Sri Lanka in the canton of St Gallen, 1973–1997
Directed by Sabine Bitter, Annika Bangerter, Nadja Ramsauer
A historical study documenting adoptions of Sri Lankan children in Switzerland between 1973 and 1997, examining fraudulent practices and Swiss institutional responsibilities. One of the most precise reports on the mechanics of Sri Lankan fraud.
Guatemala
Documented trafficking under legal cover
Investigative article
2011
Between Light and Shadow. A Guatemalan Girl’s Journey Through Adoption
Written by Jacob Wheeler
A journalistic investigation following a Guatemalan girl to document the child trafficking that developed under cover of international adoption in Guatemala. One of the best-documented cases of systemic corruption involving lawyers, notaries, and local agents.
Investigative article
2011
The U.S. Embassy Cables. Adoption Fraud in Guatemala
Written by Erin Siegal McIntyre
A journalistic work presenting declassified US Embassy cables documenting adoption fraud in Guatemala. Official documents proving US authorities knew what was happening. An exceptional primary source for understanding institutional complicity.
Memoir
2018
Mom, I’m not dead
Written by Mariela DR, Coline Fanon
A co-written testimony from a woman who discovers she was kidnapped at birth and illegally adopted. A devastating account of fraudulent adoptions, forced family separation, and the fight to have her true identity recognised.
Investigative article
2022
International adoptions: ongoing investigations and family reunifications in Belgium
Written by Jean-Pierre Stroobants (Le Monde)
A Le Monde article reporting on Belgian governmental investigations into illicit adoption practices, including adoptions from Ethiopia and other countries with documented fraud. A document on Belgium’s process of reckoning with its intercountry adoption history.
Investigative article
2021
In Guatemala, the stolen lives of adopted children
Written by Angeline Montoya (Le Monde)
A Le Monde investigation documenting the stolen lives of children adopted from Guatemala, examining the networks that made this trafficking possible and the difficulties adults now face in trying to find their biological families.
China
The one-child policy
News article
2025
The Chinese Adoptees Who Were Stolen
Written by Barbara Demick
A long-form New Yorker investigation into Chinese adoptees who discovered they had been stolen from their biological families. The one-child policy produced a market in children, with local agents paid per delivery and international agencies that preferred not to know.
Documentary
2019
One Child Nation
Directed by Nanfu Wang, Jialing Zhang
A Sundance documentary on China’s one-child policy, state propaganda, forced sterilisations and abortions, and how these policies directly fed the global adoption market. Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Emmy-nominated.
Documentary
2021
Found
Directed by Amanda Lipitz
Three American teenage girls adopted from China discover via DNA test that they are biological siblings. The film follows their reunion and return to China, revealing along the way the mechanisms of separation and concealment that made their adoptions possible.
Academic essay
2016
China’s Hidden Children
Written by Kay Ann Johnson
An academic study on abandoned children in China and the phenomenon of Chinese international adoption to the United States. Johnson interrogates dominant representations : the “cultural” abandonment of girls, and shows their partial inaccuracy, grounded in precise political and economic structures.
Haïti
The chaos after the earthquake
Investigative article
2015
Uprooted: The Lost Children of Hato Mayor
Written by Isabelle Hachey
A journalistic investigation into illegal adoptions of Haitian children following the 2010 earthquake. Isabelle Hachey documents the trafficking, the humanitarian chaos, the false orphans, and the networks that exploited the emergency to remove children whose biological parents were alive. (In French).
Documentary
2012
Paper Orphans
Directed by Marie-Ange Sylvain
A documentary examining how non-orphaned Haitian children received false orphan papers to be adopted abroad. The film documents the administrative mechanics of the fraud and its consequences on Haitian biological families.
Ethiopia
The end of a programme
New article
2026
Ethiopia’s “stolen children”, adopted while their biological parents were alive
Written by Maëlle Duhamel (Le Monde)
A Le Monde investigation documenting Ethiopian children adopted by French families whose biological parents were alive, and who had never consented to permanent adoption. An article about the distance between what official documents say and what actually happened.
Documentary
2014
Mercy, Mercy
Directed by Katrine Riis Kjær
A documentary following two young Ethiopian children adopted by a Danish couple, and the birth mothers who “entrusted” them without always understanding that the separation would be permanent. A film about the gulf of understanding between what biological families believe they are giving and what they are actually giving.
Anthology
2023
Lions Roaring Far From Home
Directed by Aselefech Evans
The first anthology exclusively dedicated to the voices of international Ethiopian adoptees, published at the very moment Ethiopia ended its international adoption programme. Texts that document from the inside what the system produced in human terms.
Investigative article
2025
“They rewrote my story, exploited me, and insulted me”: Nina’s quest for the truth, a victim of the abuses of international adoption
Written by Romane Lizée, Muelle Hélias (Streetpress)
An investigative article featuring the testimony of a woman who describes having her story rewritten, being monetised and mistreated in the context of her adoption through a French Catholic association. A document of the experience of a victim of the adoption system speaking out publicly. (In French)
Access resource
Research article
2024
Irregular adoptions in the Ethiopian-Spanish context: Strategies to redress the adoption triad
Written by Aranzazu Gallego Molinero, María del Valle Medina Rodríguez, Chandra Kala Clemente Martínez
A research article examining irregular adoption practices in the Ethiopian-Spanish adoption context, documenting how agencies and intermediaries operated outside legal boundaries to facilitate adoptions from Ethiopia to Spain.
Chile, Sweden, Denmark
Nordics scandals
Investigation
2022
Adoptionerna: ett granskande reportage
Written by Patrik Lundberg, Josefin Sköld, Alexander Mahmoud
A journalistic investigation into crimes linked to international adoptions in Sweden : decades of irregularities from Pinochet’s Chile to Korea and Latin America. The book that helped trigger the Swedish commission recommending an end to international adoption. (In Swedish).
Investigation
2015
Adoptionens slagmarker. The battlefields of adoption
Directed by Dorrit Saietz
A journalistic essay documenting the scandals and abuses of international adoption in Denmark. “The battlefields of adoption” : a title that captures a decade of investigations and revelations in a country long presented as a model for adoption. (In Danish).
News article
2025
Sweden’s commission recommends ending international adoption
Written by Anne-Françoise Hivert (Le Monde)
A Le Monde article reporting on the recommendation of a Swedish independent commission to end intercountry adoption, following investigations documenting systemic abuses. A document on the current state of the international debate on intercountry adoption and the growing momentum toward suspension or abolition in Nordic countries. (In French)
Podcast
2025
Adoption from Chile: The Aftermath
By Maria Diemar, Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom (Lifting the Adoption Fog)
Maria Diemar and Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom explore the history of adoptions from Chile and their aftermath. An episode on Chilean adoptees who discover the illicit conditions of their adoption and the battles they wage for recognition.
Vietnam
Operation Babylift and after
Documentary
2002
Daughter from Danang
Directed by Gail Dolgin, Vicente Franco
Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Oscar-nominated. A Vietnamese-American woman adopted from Vietnam during Operation Babylift finds her biological family 22 years later. The film documents the clash of expectations on both sides, and how the adoption system made a genuine return impossible.
Documentary
2009
Operation Babylift. The Lost Children of Vietnam
Directed by Tammy Nguyen Lee
A documentary examining the April 1975 Operation Babylift (the American aerial evacuation of nearly 2,000 Vietnamese children during the fall of Saigon) and its controversies: children whose biological parents were alive, adoptions carried out in organised chaos.
Anthology
2015
Vietnamese Adopted. A Collection of Voices
The An-Ya Project
A rare anthology of Vietnamese adoptee voices sharing their experiences of international adoption from Vietnam. A collection that centres perspectives rarely heard in debates dominated by Korean and Chinese adoptions.
Other countries
Testimonials from Romania, Peru, Lebanon, Samoa, Colombia, Republic of the Congo…
Memoir
Romania
2010
The little girl who danced in her head
Written by Regina Ubanatu
A memoir by a Romanian adoptee who traces her childhood in Ceauşescu’s orphanages, her adoption, and her identity reconstruction in France. A direct account of one of the most documented scandals in the history of international adoption, the Romanian orphanages revealed to the world in 1989. (In French)
Short documentary
Romania
2022
Izidor Ruckel. Short Documentary
Directed by Izidor Ruckel
A short documentary by Romanian adoptee Izidor Ruckel, whose story brought international attention to the Ceauşescu-era Romanian orphanages. His life after adoption in the United States, and what the humanitarian system of adoption concretely produced for him.
Investigative article
Lebanon
2019
Lebanese adoptees. An association denounces a real trafficking network
Written by Anne-Marie El-Hage
A L’Orient le Jour investigation into Lebanese adoptees who organised to denounce fraudulent practices (falsified birth certificates, corrupt officials) that enabled their adoptions. A case little covered in the wider press but well documented.
Report
Samoa
2010
Adoption Agency Internationally Kidnaps 88 Samoan Children
By CBS News
A report documenting the case of an Australian adoption agency that illegally transferred 88 Samoan children to the United States. Biological parents had not consented to a permanent international adoption — they believed they were sending their children abroad for their education.
Report
Congo
2015
Possible sale of Congolese children to the USA
By B-One TV Congo
A video report investigating allegations of child trafficking in the Democratic Republic of Congo toward the United States under cover of international adoption. One of the few documents on adoption from Central Africa.
Research article
Colombia
2021
The Colombian Adoption House: A Case Study
Written by Susan F. Branco
A case study examining a Colombian adoption house and the systemic abuses that occurred within it, documenting how institutional structures enabled fraudulent adoptions.
Academic paper
Peru
2008
The Circulation of Children
Written by Jessaca Leinaweaver
An ethnographic study of child circulation practices in Peru, examining how children are informally ‘lent’, placed, or given among families in ways that don’t fit Western adoption models.
V. Today’s decline and debates
WHERE DO THINGS STAND
International adoption has been in sharp decline since the mid-2000s. Several countries have suspended or banned their programmes. Official commissions have issued damning reports. Adult adoptees have collectively taken the floor. These resources document this turning point and the debates it raises.
VI. Adoptee voices
LISTEN TO PERSONAL STORIES
These theoretical and political frameworks were first lived by people.
Here are some entry points through testimony. Adoptees who named these dimensions without waiting for institutions to do it first.
Going further
MANY MORE RESOURCES
This guide draws on a database of over 1,300 resources (books, films, podcasts, articles, associations, support groups).
Search by country, name theme, topic or format.
MENTAL HEALTH & THE ADOPTION JOURNEY
This guide focuses on historical, political and documentary reading. Check our separate guide dedicated to psychological and mental health resources on trauma, attachment, searching for origins, and healing.
The two readings are complementary. Understanding the system does not replace exploring one’s own relationship to it.