Holt International Adoption Agency in Seoul Korea

Holt’s Front Door

Adoptionland.orgAbout Us, Adoption, Adoption Trafficking, Agency Complaints, Asia, Featured, Rights, The Americas

Why is this a big deal? Because the front door is typically reserved for their customers—paying people applying for a child—checkbook in hand. Adopted people are expected to enter through the back, asking questions in a hushed tone, so as not to make a scene. For years (decades, really), there’s been talk in certain adoption circles that we need to …

Korean American adoptees furious at light sentence for toddler killer

Adoptionland.orgAdoption, Adoption Trafficking, Agency Complaints, Asia, Excerpts, Rights

DAMASCUS, MD (WUSA9) — – Advocates for children adopted from South Korea are furious about the light sentence handed on Tuesday to a Marine Corps vet who killed his 3-year-old adopted son. Madoc Hyunsu O’Callaghan was buried here in an all but unmarked grave. Adult adoptees from South Korea want to know how it’s possible that the dad who admitted hurling the …

Toddler’s murder reopens old wounds for Korean adoptees

Adoptionland NewsAbout Us, Adoption, Adoption Trafficking, Agency Complaints, Asia, Excerpts, Rights, The Americas

Shannon Heit, 33, trembled with rage as she recalled the moment two months ago when she heard that a Korean boy had been killed by his adoptive father in the U.S. Heit, a freelance translator in Seoul, is not related to the boy. But she said that, as a Korean-American adoptee herself, she felt a deep connection to him, and …

Adoptionland: From Orphans to Activists

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Compiled by the Vance Twins,  Adoptionland: From Orphans to Activists, is an indispensable contribution to adoption literature. The essays, poems and letters in this compilation reflect the thoughts, the feelings, the souls of those who inhabit AdoptionLand — a place of truth and acceptance for the casualties of the demand for children. “I feel like a stolen heart from a corpse, …

A Request to the Korean Government: Stop Intercountry Adoptions

South Korea remains one of the largest exporters of overseas adoptees in the world

Adoptionland NewsAdoption, Adoption Trafficking, Agency Complaints, Asia, Excerpts, Korea, Rights, The Americas

When she finally tracked down the hospital where her son was taken ― which was affiliated with adoption agents ― it had been abruptly closed. After crying for days, she descended into depression with frequent suicidal thoughts.