South Korea’s truth commission has concluded that the government bears responsibility for facilitating a foreign adoption program rife with fraud and abuse, driven by efforts to reduce welfare costs and enabled by private agencies that often manipulated children’s backgrounds and origins.

The commission urged South Korea to issue an official apology for an adoption process that was often fraudulent.

Besides recommending an official apology, the commission also called for a comprehensive survey on adoptees' citizenship status and any corresponding policy measures, remedies for