The World Reacts: TRC3 in World News
- USKRG
- Mar 4
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 17
News about the third Truth & Reconciliation Commission (TRC3) and its ripple effects for adoptees around the world. For more information about the latest TRC, please see USKRG's TRC3 page.
July 16, 2026
Al Jazeera
South Korea’s government has acknowledged wrongs, but advocates say accountability is still lacking. Lee Do-hyun, founder of KoRoot, an organisation that has supported overseas adoptees since 2003, says Korea has misplaced effort by creating positive experiences for adoptees rather than taking responsibility. Peter Møller, a Danish Korean who heads up KoRoot, argues that Korea has yet to produce meaningful accountability.
May 4, 2026
Korea Herald
Eight people adopted to Denmark from South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s are suing Denmark for denying them the right to their identity, origin and family life." The Danish state had an obligation to ensure that the children were legally allowed to be adopted from their birth families, and that was clearly not the case," their lawyer Viktor Kieler Herskind, stated.
April 10, 2026
Associated Press
Justice Minister Jung Sung-ho said the country’s past adoptions amounted to “forced child trafficking” and that the government will largely refrain from appealing rulings in cases brought by victims seeking compensation for government wrongdoing. He added that the government is willing to expand legal redress, statute of limitations and speed compensation for verified victims of government abuses.
March 11, 2026
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian government revealed to the ABC on Thursday that it was commencing an investigation into the adoption program after a South Korean inquiry found there was a lack of proper consent for adoption at the agency, children's reports were fabricated, and screening processes of adoptive parents were inadequate and rushed.
February 26, 2026
Associated Press The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the third in the country’s history, began accepting new cases Thursday, months after the previous one’s mandate ended in November with more than 2,100 complaints unresolved. United States accounted for the second-largest group [of applicants] with 73.
February 2, 2026
The Korea TImes
Danish adoptee Anders Riel Müller is one of the 56 overseas adoptees whose case the TRC2 confirmed as a human rights violation last May in Korea. He states that meaningful justice was not delivered by TRC2 and says, TRC's "reliance on documentation to verify harm presents a cruel irony. The very system under investigation was built on falsifying, fabricating and destroying those documents," and adds that legal action or financial compensation, while not the equivalent of justice, have not been accessible to victims of the State. He concludes that, "Restorative justice must be proportional to the harm done. It must be reconstructive, not only financial or symbolic."
