Sofie Randel (Sofi Randel) was three years old when she and her younger brother arrived in Denmark in 1977, during a period of authoritarian rule in South Korea.
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The lively, talkative little girl spoke Korean fluently at the time, and her adoptive father recorded it on a cassette, which then gathered dust for many years.
In 2023, S. Randel gave the recording to a journalist who accompanied her in search of her origins.
Little by little, through her childish chatter about arriving in Denmark and some investigations carried out in South Korea, S. Randel uncovered a different story than the one in her Danish adoption documents.
Based on them, she believed that she and her brother had been abandoned on the street with notes pinned to their clothes stating their names and ages.
However, she then learned that their mother had entrusted them to an orphanage while the family dealt with financial difficulties.
Instead of being cared for in the orphanage, both children were adopted together in Denmark, like tens of thousands of other children sent abroad under a state-sanctioned practice that lasted for decades.
In South Korea, S. Randel’s three older brothers and sister always hoped to see them again. All six finally met in South Korea in 2023.
“They searched for us for 45 years,” S. Randel, now 52, told AFP, wiping away tears.
She and her brother did not know that anyone was looking for them.
She believes that the Danish authorities, in turn, tried to “cover up the story” by telling them they had been abandoned.
Adoption investigation
According to an official investigation, South Korea sent more than 140,000 children abroad for adoption between 1955 and 1999.
In October 2025, Seoul apologized for the first time for such state-sanctioned practices, stating that “unlawful human rights violations” had occurred.
Between 1970 and 1989, 7,220 South Korean children were adopted in Denmark, almost all of whom were told they were orphans found on the streets.
Investigations proved the opposite – it turned out that South Korean children from orphanages were given up for adoption without their families’ consent.
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A 2024 report by the National Social Appeals Board showed that Danish state adoption agencies knew that their partners in South Korea sometimes altered children’s identities.
According to Danish media reports, Danish agencies paid approximately 54 million Danish kroner (7.15 million euros) to facilitate adoptions.
“As a Dane, I believed that Denmark was on the side of good, and Korea, as a former dictatorship, was on the side of the bad guys,” said Peter Moller, who heads an association advocating for the rights of South Korean adoptees, which is not involved in filing a lawsuit against the Danish state.
“But Korea had the courage to look directly at what it did,” while “Denmark prefers to sweep everything under the rug,” he said.
Adoptee finds father
Sidse Koch Jorgensen (Sidsė Koch Jorgensen), a 53-year-old physiotherapist and adoptee, feels anger.
“It is a human right to know your identity and also to have the opportunity to maintain contact with your biological family,” she fumed.
Inaccuracies in her adoption documents hindered this for many years, but now she is nearing the end of her search, which began with her first trip to South Korea in 2013.
“A month before I left, I received an email saying they had found my father,” she said.
She met him during her visit and learned that the true circumstances of her separation from her biological family were very different from what was written in her adoption documents.
While her father was out of the country, S. K. Jorgensen’s grandmother sent her to a “camp” to be cared for without his consent. However, from there, the child was sent to Denmark for adoption.
“I want the Danish government to take responsibility for such gross negligence,” S. K. Jorgensen added.
“They were the institutions that should have checked everything, delved a little deeper if there were any doubts,” she insisted.
Contacted by AFP, the Danish Ministry of Social Affairs declined to comment.
Denmark froze international adoptions in 2024 after a number of serious problems related to international adoption practices came to light.
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