How Systemic Switching of Orphans by S. Korean Adoption Agencies Was Brought To Public Light.

How Systemic Switching Came To Be Known By The Truth and Reconcilation Commission Korea (TRCK), The S. Korean Public, and The World.

Super Omnia, Dic Veritatem.
Above All, Speak The Truth.

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This post was published to Paperslip on March 29th, 2025, following the first Press Release / Press Conference by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Korea (TRCK) on March 26th, 2025.

Proper Credit Has Been DENIED To My Work In Bringing The Systemic Practice of Switching
In Korean Adoption To Public Light, By Both DKRG (Danish Korean Rights Group) and the FRONTLINE documentary “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning”.

Below I Take That Credit Back.

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Systemic Switching
First Came To Be Known By The Truth and Reconcilation Commission of Korea (TRCK) Due To My Efforts In 2020.

I Submitted Case Summaries of Switched Korean Adoptees To The TRCK on Dec. 18th, 2020 Prior To DKRG’s Formation in May 2022.

These Were The First Cases of Any Korean Adoptees Submitted To The TRCK.

Can DKRG (Danish Korean Rights Group) even claim credit for having the original thought to submit Korean Adoptee’s cases to the TRCK?
DKRG wasn't even founded until May 2022, (see screen shots below this section) but I had submitted case summaries of switched Korean Adoptees to the TRCK through a contact who knew the Chairperson of the TRCK on Friday, December 18th, 2020. This was almost a year and a half before DKRG even existed.

According to the Korean Wikipedia page about the TRCK, the TRCK was reestablished on December 10th, 2020. This means that I submitted case summaries of switched Korean Adoptees to a connection who knew the head of the TRCK just days after the TRCK commenced.

This is how the TRCK knew about switching even before the official TRCK investigation into Overseas Adoption began. I had identified switching as systemic in the preface to my case study summaries of switched Adoptees, titled “Switching of Orphans by S. Korean Adoption Agencies”, which you can read below this section.

Therefore the TRCK’s original knowledge of Systemic Switching had nothing to do with DKRG, and everything to do with the original switch case story summaries which I had submitted to the TRCK in 2020 before DKRG even formed in 2022.

Below this section are screenshots of emails which prove this timeline of events.

I guess I hadn't been clear on TRC history in relation to adoption cases until now.

But the timeline of the TRCK in relation to Overseas Adoption is:

December 10th, 2020: TRC formed.

December 18th, 2020: I informally submitted summaries of switched Adoptees' cases to the head of the TRC through a contact.

May 2022: DKRG formed.

September 11th, 2022: Application deadline for submission of cases to the TRC.

May 2025: TRC concludes.

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I submitted the original essay
“Switching of Orphans by S. Korean Adoption Agencies”
to a contact who knew the Chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea (TRCK) on behalf of several switched Adoptees on December 18th, 2020. This prefaced written accounts of several cases of switched Korean Adoptees whom I know and whose stories I had summarized for the TRCK.

I wrote the message below as the preface to a document titled, “Summary of Switch Cases” which I submitted through a contact to the Chairperson of the TRCK (Truth and Reconcilation Commission Korea) on Friday, December 18th, 2020. To my knowledge, this is the first time that any Korean Adoptee had submitted any Korean Adoption cases to the TRCK. The TRCK was never intended to include Overseas Adoption cases - it was originally set up to investigate the major concentration camps of S. Korea. While I was certainly not the first person to have heard about or experienced switching, I am the first person to have successfully brought to both S. Korean and international public attention the concept of switching in Korean Adoption as systemic (and not just applying to an individual case). It is directly because of my foundational work with other switched Korean Adoptees, who graciously shared their stories with me starting in 2018, that the Korean Government acknowledged through its TRCK Press Conference on March 26th, 2025 that switching was a systemic violation of Korean Adoptees’ human rights. And it is directly because of my work with other switched Adoptees that Switching became the backbone of the FRONTLINE documentary “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning” and the related Associated Press articles of 2024.

The majority of the switched Adoptees with whom I have been in contact since 2018 have now appeared in multiple international press outlets.

Below is what I wrote in my preface to the “Summary of Switch Cases” which I submitted through a contact to the Chairperson of the TRCK (Truth and Reconcilation Commission Korea) on
Friday, December 18th, 2020.

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Switching of Orphans by S. Korean Adoption Agencies.

Submitted to a contact to be delivered to the Chairperson of the TRCK on December 18th, 2020.
*Note that switching is specifically mentioned as systemic in the text below.

TRIGGER WARNING FOR SENSITIVE CONTENT.

“The switching of orphans seems tragically to have been a common systemic practice in S. Korean Adoption throughout its history, but it was likely most common in the 1970s and 1980s during the peak years when Korea exported the majority of its orphans and “orphanized” children around the world. It is clear to Korean Adoptees across the globe that orphans were not merely born, but were often created by the Korean Adoption Agencies which sold them ruthlessly for profit. The practice of switching by Korean Adoption Agencies cruelly and efficiently severed a child from her or his real identity - in the majority of cases, permanently. Because such agencies continue to mislead and lie with such callousness to switched Adoptees about their true identities, irreparable harm is caused not only to switched Adoptees, but also to their adoptive and birth families, who must contend with the repercussive and detrimental effects of such lies over years and decades of time. The cruel practice of Adoption Agencies covering up Adoptees’ true identities must end. Until Korea can reconcile its past with respect to its adoption practices, it cannot truly be considered a first world country.

What follows are summaries of several switch cases of S. Korean Adoptees sent to the U.S. and Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Each case is uniquely tragic, with lifelong repercussions for each switched Adoptee and her or his adoptive and biological families. However, these cases also share commonalities which illuminate the systemic nature of switching by S. Korean Adoption Agencies, carried out in conjunction with their U.S. and European Adoption Agency counterparts. The inherent human rights violations should be apparent, but to relate my personal experience as an anonymous switched Korea Social Services (KSS) Adoptee, I can say that the effects of switching are emotionally devastating for the switched Adoptee and for her or his adoptive and biological families over years - and often decades - of time. The long decades of deceptive practice in which S. Korean Adoption Agencies have so carelessly engaged (and in which they may continue to engage) constitute an act of prolonged criminal violence inflicted upon the Adoptee and her or his adoptive and biological families. It is mercifully true that Korean Adoption Agency social workers did not physically (redacted for sensitivity) against Orphans / Adoptees in the same way in which Seongam Academy captors so brutally attacked the young boys that were forcibly detained under the Presidency of future KSS Founder Baek Geun Chil (Paperslip Note: Since the time of this writing, we have realized that the concentration camp Seongam Academy was likely at its most notorious in the 1970s. KSS Founder Baek Geun Chil was Vice President and later President of Seongam Academy earlier, in the 1940s, prior to his study in the US and UK in the 1950s and his subsequent founding of KSS in 1964. We do not know what Seongam Academy was like in the 1940s, though it had originally been set up a camp for “vagrant” boys by the Japanese under occupation. Seongam Academy was never a place where “child welfare” was a priority). Nonetheless when Adoption Agencies like KSS and others systemically, routinely, and shamelessly lie to switched Adoptees and bury the truths about their origins over years and decades of time - when all Adoptees want to know is the truth about their pasts - these Adoption Agencies commit an equivalent act of sustained criminal emotional violence against Adoptees which must not only be exposed, but also atoned for through the revelation of the truth about such switched Adoptees’ pasts.

The emotional, financial, and time expenditures inflicted upon the switched Adoptees in their often dead end attempts to discover the truths about their pasts from their S. Korean Adoption Agencies is immense. The tragic part is that only those Adoptees who possess sufficient emotional, financial, and time resources are able to even begin to engage in a search for their origins, when it is everyone’s fundamental human right to know her or his origins. It is exceedingly unfair that those who do not have enough emotional strength, money or time to spend on repeated trips to Korea are destined to lose the fight to learn their family history. As a victim of past colonization by foreign powers, Korea ought to understand what it feels like to have its rights stripped away and for its population to face the daily humiliation of being deprived of their fundamental human rights. Sadly, we see the residual effect of Japanese colonization reverberate through the (redacted for sensitivity) actions of KSS founder Baek Geun Chil, who supervised not only my but presumably hundreds or thousands of other switch cases at KSS, which he founded in the wake of his Presidency at the notorious Seongam Academy. Surely Korea can see that Baek Geun Chil’s actions were reprehensible and that his role in orphan switching at KSS requires investigation, as does the general practice of switching at the other major Korean Adoption Agencies. The protection of a child’s human rights should be aspired to by any first world nation. Yet many switched Adoptees like myself feel that we are ex-nihilo - that we come from a black box containing an unknowable past - because no Korean Adoption Agency social worker has the human decency to reveal our real identities. We are not interested in Korea’s shame. Shame only has the effect of causing Adoption Agencies to further bury the truth. What we want and need is for Korea to face up to its past in a way that dignifies its present position of strength and power on the world stage. In light of this, I hope that the switch stories I describe below will help initiate investigation into the deceptive practices of Korea’s Adoption Agencies, which clearly need to be remedied with the truthful revelation of switched Adoptees’ true identities. As Adoptees, we have a fundamental human right to know our origins which we have been routinely and systemically denied. For Korea to truly be a standard bearing first world nation, it must reconcile its past and give us our truths.”

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Below is a screencapture of my original email to my contact on from Friday,
December 18th, 2020.
My contact knew the Chairperson of the TRCK and would later present to them my “Summary of Switch Cases” document.

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Below is a screencapture of a post by DKRG leader Peter Moeller who makes clear that DKRG was not formed until a few weeks prior to May 10th, 2022.

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The timeline showing that I submitted Switch case summaries to the TRCK on December 18th, 2020, prior to when DKRG was even formed in April or May 2022, is clear from my post above.

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Something Rotten In Denmark: A Word of Caution About The Danish Korean Rights Group (DKRG) + KoRoot

Because I was doing groundbreaking research into not only the systemic nature of switching in Korean Adoption, but also KSS’ uniquely encoded K-Number system, history, and practices, all of which had been the foundation of Paperslip.org since 2020, I was egregiously pushed out of the TRCK movement by DKRG in December 2022 - after first being approached by them in August 2022 to help spread the word to US Adoptees - so that they could attempt to take credit for my work.

*It should be noted that the main reason why ANY US Korean Adoptees’ cases are represented in the TRCK at all is due to the fact that I made an instructional video about how to fill out the TRCK forms with DKRG’s Peter Moeller and Peter Knudsen on the day in August 2022 when they reached out to me to help them to spread word to US Adoptees about the TRCK. By the time that DKRG reached out to me, there were just 15 days for US Adoptees to submit their cases to the TRCK before the September 11th, 2022 deadline. After DKRG blocked me from all online groups on December 7th, 2022 for no reason, they apparently did not know anyone else in the US - and this is part of why so few US cases are represented in the TRCK.

My KSS K-Number research was deeply personal, making its attempted theft all the more egregious. This research was never meant to be made public, and was my personal search for my dead, switched twin through KSS’ K-Number system. I was forced to make my research public when DKRG gave false credit for my work to a non-Adoptee supporter on January 1st, 2023. They have never apologized.

I was blocked from all DKRG / TRC related forums on December 7th, 2022 for no reason. Ironically, after that, my case became one of the first 34 cases to be accepted by the TRCK. In February 2023, DKRG blocked my attempt to meet with the TRCK investigators in Korea, to whom I had tried to present my years of research about KSS. I had already paid for my trip to Korea, but was forced to cancel it after DKRG prevented my appointment with the TRCK investigators.

I withdrew my TRCK case in March 2023 due to DKRG’s egregious behavior.

Because of DKRG, I was NOT able to get justice in my and my twin’s separate switch cases through the TRCK, despite my years of volunteer work and research with the KSS Adoptee community.

Read about that sordid story here.

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Knowledge of Individual Switch Cases Is Nothing New.

However, Bringing to Mass Public Attention That Switching Was Systemic In Korean Adoption IS NEW. I Deserve Recognition For Bringing That To Public Light.

I want to note that I came to learn about switching directly from another switched KSS Adoptee in 2018, who wishes to remain anonymous. I did not find out about switching through an academic route, I came to understand switching through my own case, other (mainly KSS Adoptees’) switch cases, and later in 2019 and 2020, the switch case of my twin. I want to acknowledge that I watched Deann Borshay Liem’s film “In The Matter of Cha Jung Hee”, which explored her own case as a switched ISS (International Social Service) Adoptee in Summer 2018, but only after another switched KSS Adoptee had already told me about switching. I want to acknowledge that watching Deann’s film was essential in helping both myself and my adoptive parents to come to believe that switching could happen. However, my attempts to engage Deann privately at that time in discussion were not very successful, and (likely because she was understandably very busy), she never gave me any input into the research that I was doing into systemic switching - though she has been very kind when I met her in person at a Korean Adoptee conference in Korea in 2023, and I have great admiration for her. So it was not from Deann’s film - which was only about her personal switch case, and not the systemic nature of switching - nor from any other academic resource that I came to discover that switching was systemic. In fact, when I first began to suspect I was switched in 2018, I inexplicably had to battle being gaslighted by someone who had worked directly with Deann on her film about switching who told me emphatically that “switching didn’t happen”.

I realized that switching was systemic from my own research which involved talking to and meeting with other (mainly KSS) switched Adoptees and from intensively researching my own and my twin’s separate and exceedingly complicated switch cases. My twin and I were not switched with each other - we were switched with other girls. I also arranged to visit KSS in 2021 with Associated Press (AP) journalist Tong-hyung Kim, a human rights activist, and a filmmaker, where KSS’ longest serving social worker (who had worked at KSS since 1976) admitted on camera that “switching happened all the time”. I am quite sure that this is the only on-camera admission by a Korean Adoption Agency social worker that switching was systemic. This startling admission constitutes a major part of my original research. It was my research into my and my twin’s switch cases along with other switched Adoptees’ cases which became the foundation of not only what the TRCK first came to know about switching starting on December 18th, 2020 when I first submitted case summaries of switched Adoptees to them, but also the FRONTLINE documentary “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning” and related Associated Press articles in 2024.

I had first reached out to Associated Press (AP) reporter Tong-Hyung Kim in 2021 to ask that he write an article about the systemic nature of switching, which he agreed to do. The 2024 FRONTLINE documentary is extremely misleading; it wasn’t Tong-Hyung’s investigation of switching that led the way - it was my handing my investigation of switching over to Tong-Hyung over years of time, since 2021. You can see from my summary of switch cases at the top of this page that I had already identified switching as systemic before I came into contact with Tong-hyung - and in fact, the entire reason I reached out to him in January 2021 was to request that he write an article about the systemic nature of switching in Korean Adoption. Since first connecting with him in January 2021, I had directly referred to him around a dozen switched Adoptees whom I knew, and sent him the summaries of the switch cases which I had already sent to my TRCK contact on December 18th, 2020. I had also spent hours meeting with him via Zoom and in person in Korea. Everything that Tong-Hyung originally knew about switching came directly from me, my investigation of my own and my twin’s switch cases, and the Adoptees to whom I had referred him since 2021.

It should be noted that while the scope of the FRONTLINE documentary was ambitious - covering the historical origins of Korean Adoption from the 1950s forward to the present day - the only thing which was new in the documentary was discussion of the systemic nature of switching. Of course, the source of that information was me, and the two “switched” Adoptees I had referred to Tong-Hyung, neither of whom had been the central focus of my research into mainly KSS switched Adoptees. Two of the five Korean Adoptees interviewed in the documentary were “switched” Adoptees, and four of the five of the Adoptees had been referred to FRONTLINE / AP by me, along with non-Adoptee author Eleana J. Kim, whom I had met in Florence, Italy in 2018.

Tong-Hyung had approached me in Summer 2023 about being filmed by FRONTLINE - by that point, I had waited for 2 years for the article I had requested that he write to come out, which it wouldn’t until October 2024, AFTER the FRONTLINE documentary was released in September of the same year. Of course I said yes when asked to be filmed. Despite my story being filmed by FRONTLINE in the US and in Korea in June 2023, my story was eventually cut from the final documentary (ostensibly for complexity and length) and neither my revelations about the systemic nature of switching nor my referral of the majority of the interviewees for both the FRONTLINE documentary and the AP articles were acknowledged in the film.

I was stunned by the overwhelming reaction to the FRONTLINE documentary upon its release, and I struggled to process the fact that my role was entirely excluded. This was particularly disheartening given my years of effort in sharing my investigation into systemic switching to Tong-hyung, and by extension to the documentary's Director, Lora Moftah, who collaborated closely with Tong-hyung on the film.

Ever since discovering a cluster of Danish KSS switched Adoptees in 2018 - ironically, I (an American) had connected us all online and later in person in 2018 in Denmark as switched Adoptees, I had suspected that switching was systemic. It had been my goal since 2018 to bring the systemic nature of switching to public light.

Despite my utter lack of acknowledgement or credit by DKRG or in the FRONTLINE documentary, my original goal of bringing the systemic nature of switching to public light has now been accomplished through the FRONTLINE documentary in 2024 and by the TRCK in 2025.

The rest, as they say, is (egregiously uncredited) history.

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While The Associated Press (AP) Ran A Story About My Switch Case In 2024, The More Impactful FRONTLINE documentary “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning” DENIES Me Proper Credit For My Work Into Systemic Switching.

Despite My First Approaching AP Reporter Tong-Hyung KIM In January 2021 To Request That He Write A Story About The Systemic Nature of Switching in Korean Adoption, I Received ZERO Credit For My Investigation Into Systemic Switching In The FRONTLINE Documentary “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning”.

I want to acknowledge that Tong-Hyung delivered as promised by writing a story titled “A South Korean adoptee needed answers about the past. She got them — just not the ones she wanted” about my switch case in 2024. My story was also featured in an interactive piece titled “Who Am I Then” accompanying the FRONTLINE documentary “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning”. However, viewers of the much more impactful FRONTLINE documentary will never realize my significant involvement in one of its main subjects, Systemic Switching, nor that I referred to FRONTLINE/AP most of the filmed subjects, including MANY Adoptee interviewees for the related AP articles. The documentary primarily highlights Tong-Hyung, suggesting he has spearheaded the investigation into systemic switching, while I had been providing him with own direct research for years - since 2021, when I first reached out to him to ask him to write a story about the systemic nature of switching in Korean Adoption. Despite FRONTLINE/AP beginning with their filming process by filming my story in the US in June 2023 and in Korea in July 2023, Tong-Hyung has yet to apologize for my absence and lack of acknowledgement in the film. My interpretation of this is that he is not actually sorry for it, and has tacitly accepted credit for my work into the systemic nature of switching.

Both the Director of the FRONTLINE documentary Lora Moftah and Tong-hyung were fully aware of the extent of my research. The complete omission of my role in the final documentary is a significant perversion of the truth. After the documentary was released, Lora privately acknowledged that the entire FRONTLINE team was amazed by my investigation into my and my twin's switch cases. However, my years of research were not meant to privately entertain the FRONTLINE team; they were intended to contribute meaningfully to the story. There was no reason I couldn't have received at least a line of acknowledgment in the documentary credits, but apparently, even that was too much for FRONTLINE to consider.

Below - January, 24th, 2021: My first email to Associated Press (AP) reporter Tong-hyung KIM, asking him to write a story about the systemic nature of switching.

Below: Some of my many emails to Associated Press (AP) reporter Tong-hyung KIM, referring to him all of the switched Adoptees whom I knew. (2021-2024).

Note - The unredacted name “Claire” refers to Claire Galofaro, the other AP reporter who appeared in the FRONTLINE documentary “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning”. The unredacted name “Lora” refers to Lora Moftah, the FRONTLINE documentary’s director. These names need not be redacted as they are publicly associated with the documentary and articles.

During the filming of the FRONTLINE documentary in Korea in July 2023, Director Lora Moftah acknowledged my role in shaping the narrative, exclaiming, “You’re the driver!” She later privately admitted that my “handprints were all over the FRONTLINE documentary.” Despite this, she did not credit me with a single line of credit in the film, in which I appeared for exactly one second. This oversight is particularly offensive given her close collaboration with Tong-Hyung, with whom I had shared my and my twin’s switch cases since 2021 and to whom I had directed all my Adoptee contacts willing to speak with the press.

Part of the story of my investigation into my case is acknowledged in a summary of an Award which AP reporters Tong-Hyung Kim and Claire Galofaro received for their reporting about my case. However, given that this acknowledgement was possible to be made here - in this piece that few will ever see - why was it not possible to credit me in the FRONTLINE documentary, with much wider viewership? Even this blurb below however does not explicitly acknowledge the extent to which I was researching the systemic nature of switching in Korean Adoption - it makes it seem as though I were only investigating my own case:

BEST OF AP — FIRST WINNER
A South Korean adoptee needed answers about the past. She got them — just not the ones she wanted

”…The story was made possible by South Korean-based reporter Kim Tong-hyung’s exceptional source development and relentless, decade-long pursuit of the truth. Kimmel got in touch with him years ago, after she read his stories about suspected fraud in South Korea’s adoption system.

Their first conversation over Zoom went on for several hours. Kimmel unpacked her lifelong doubts about the girl in her adoption file that didn’t look like her, how that drove an exhaustive search to find her true biological origins, her repeated false starts and the pain of being stymied at each step, and her growing sense of loss from living with an identity based on someone she wasn’t.

They met in person months later and Kim accompanied Kimmel on a visit to her adoption agency in Seoul. There, after spending hours but failing to find Kimmel’s real file, an adoption worker made a startling admission that child switching had been a common practice at adoption agencies during the adoption rush of the 1970s and `80s, and that birthed Kim’s years-long obsession with reporting on adoption fraud out of Korea.”

I find the last sentence to be misleading. Tong-hyung didn’t simply discover the systemic nature of switching during a visit to KSS with me, and thereafter investigate switching on his own. From 2021 to 2024, I directly referred him to numerous switched adoptees I had identified since 2018, along with other Korean adoptees facing severe human rights violations. Contrary to the portrayal in Tong-hyung’s AP article, I didn’t simply “stumble” upon other switched KSS adoptees in Europe; I intentionally organized a meeting of switched KSS adoptees in Denmark in Fall 2018, days after moving to Italy from the US. These core switched Danish KSS Adoptees were the backbone of my investigation into the systemic nature of switching and I summarized all of their cases, along with several other non-KSS Adoptees’ switch cases, for the TRCK for submission to the head of the TRCK on December 18th, 2020. Ironically, this preceded by a year and a half the more formal submission of Korean Adoptees’ cases to the TRCK by DKRG (Danish Korean Rights Group). Myself and ALL of the Danish KSS switched Adoptees I organized to meet with in Denmark in 2018 submitted our cases in 2022 officially to the TRCK. It is no accident that Switching is one of the human rights violations which was officially identified on March 26th, 2025 by the TRCK - it was directly because of my early efforts in organizing Danish KSS and other switched Korean Adoptees that the TRCK became aware of switching a year and a half BEFORE the official TRCK investigations into Overseas Adoptions began. My work in eliciting evidence from these highly reticent Danish switched Adoptees in 2018 would form the backbone of my investigation into the systemic nature of switching in Korean Adoption.

My years long investigation into the systemic nature of switching was highly deliberate, and Tong-hyung was fully aware of that. Given his close collaboration with FRONTLINE Director Lora Moftah, it is egregious that my significant role in this investigation was omitted from the final film.

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March 26th, 2025:
The TRCK Almost Got It Right About Switching - But Not Quite.

Below: Screenshot of the TRCK’s finding, announced March 26th, 2025, that “Deliberate Identity Subsitution” - in other words, Switching - is a human rights violation.

Despite the fact that my research into switching was co-opted by others and not credited to me by DKRG or in the FRONTLINE documentary, I am gratified that the TRCK acknowledged switching as a human rights violation in their first report, released on March 26th, 2025. They got the definition of switching almost right - but not quite. Here is what they said about switching:

”Deliberate Identity Substitution: If a child in the adoption process passed away or was reclaimed by their biological family, agencies would substitute another child’s identity to expedite the adoption, severely violating adoptees’ rights to their true identities.”

The TRCK forgot to mention the 3rd major reason which I codified as one of the 3 major reasons for switching: when a child became too sick to travel.

After distilling the stories of the switched Adoptees I have known since 2018, I personally codified the definition of switching as:

”Switching occurred when any Child A either died, became too sick to travel, or was picked up by birth parents from the orphanage or adoption agency. Any Child B was then sent physically in Child A’s place”.

It’s the PHYSICAL substitution of the child which constitutes, for me, “Classic Switching”. Other forms of identity falsification are just that - other forms of identity falsification. Switching for me is physical substitution of Child A with Child B, where Child B grows up with the orphan identity and paperwork of Child A, without the adoptive parents or the Adoptee being alerted of the physical substitution.

Switching is wholly the fault and responsibility of the Korean and Western Adoption Agencies which egregiously neglected the Right To Origin of switched Korean Adoptees.

It is nearly impossible for switched Adoptees to solve their own cases, and to discover their true identities.

It should be noted that there is much more that can be said about the topic of Switching than will be included on this page.

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The REAL Hero In My Story Is SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System).
SBS Made A Short Documentary About My Switch Case In 2021, And A Remarkable 1 Hour Documentary About My Switch Case In 2022.

Switching Was Thus Introduced To A S. Korean Audience In A *Significant Way For The First Time in History.

*News stories about switch cases have previously appeared in Korean media, but in much less prominent ways. The "SBS Special", which produced the second documentary about my case in 2022, is a prestigious program—only about five SBS Specials are made each year.

While neither the FRONTLINE documentary nor DKRG credited me for my work into switching, SBS sure did. SBS made an amazing documentary about my case in 2022, and apparently this is the first time in which Switching was introduced to the Korean public on such a significant scale. Smaller scale newspaper articles had been written about individual switched Adoptees before in Korean media, but never before had there been a first-rate documentary made about Switching in S. Korea.

The SBS documentary told the story of how I first discovered that I was switched in 2018, then in 2019 discovered at KSS a file of a girl, whom I now call “Baby A”, whom I thought was me for over one year. In 2020 I realized that “Baby A” was NOT me, and was likely my twin sister. I was devastated to realize in the course of my investigation of her case that she had likely died between late 1975-early 1976. In investigating her case, I came to research KSS’ K-Number system, and to investigate the systemic nature of switching, especially amongst KSS Adoptees. This research would take me to Denmark, Korea, and back to the US between 2018-2020 through to the present time (2025). I found a Korean birth father’s listing on the KAS (Korea Adoption Services) website where he had posted that he was looking for twin daughters, born between 1973-1976. Since I was born in 1975, I attempted to contact NCRC to obtain Mr. Park’s contact information in 2020, but I did not hear back from NCRC for over one year. I managed to go to Korea in 2021, enduring a 2 week quarantine in a Korean government hotel, and finally tracked Mr. Park down myself with the help of police and city hall workers on Jeju Island. It was at this point that SBS first got involved in my story. SBS flew Mr. Park and I to Seoul from Jeju to take two four-day turnaround DNA tests, at the companies DowGene and KGI / Korea Genetics Institute. When it turned out that we were not a DNA match, it was devastating for both of us, but I decided to obtain two 23 and Me tests, one for Mr. Park and one for his son, since it was clear that Mr. Park had had twin daughters and desperately wanted to find them. After returning to the US, it took 23 and Me just 21 days to match Mr. Park to his real twin daughters, since his twins had already take the same test. I was able to contact the twins and tell them the good news that I had met their birth father in Korea. It took over one year of planning, but I eventually managed to convinced Mr. Park’s twins to be filmed for a new documentary by SBS which documented not only my switch case but the reunion of Mr. Park and his twin daughters on Jeju Island in Korea. The SBS crew did a phenomenal job, and the documentary was released on December 24th, 2022 in Korea.

What was not filmed is that we took Mr. Park’s case to the Korean National Assembly (Korea’s version of Congress) in October 2021, as it became clear in the aftermath of the reunion that both NCRC and Holt could and should have reunited Mr. Park with his real twin daughters, who had grown up with their real birth date, and whom had all been in contact with the SAME Holt social worker in Korea since 2018 - 3 years before I met Mr. Park in 2021. That Holt social worker later admitted she suspected that Mr. Park was related to his real twin daughters, whom she had met in 2018 at Holt, just one month before Mr. Park himself traveled to Seoul from Jeju to try to obtain information from Holt about his twin daughters. Holt willfully failed to reunite Mr. Park with his real twin daughters in 2018, or at any point afterwards. The Holt social worker retired, and would have let Mr. Park die without ever meeting his twins had I not successfully reunited him with them through a 23 and Me test. When I found this out, I was so outraged that I spent months working to take Mr. Park’s case (with his full cooperation and the significant help of supporters in Korea) to the National Assembly during the annual National Audit to criticize both Holt and NCRC. When this laborious process was complete, absolutely nothing changed at NCRC.

The darker side of this story was not captured as much in the SBS documentary; however, I truly commend them for doing a phenomenal job of getting up to speed so quickly on the concept of switching - which was not at that time widely known about in Korea - and filming my story not only in Korea but also in multiple states in the US. The SBS crew has my highest respect and I greatly appreciate what they did in the service of making the concept of switching in Korean Adoption known to a Korean audience. I later sent a link to the SBS documentary to the TRCK investigators in Korea, along with many other support materials from Paperslip, back when my TRCK case was still active. I feel proud to have been able to make this dark part of history known thanks to SBS, and to have been fully credited for my work in the process.

Thank you SBS!!!

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After Filming With SBS In Korea, DKRG Once Again Held A Piece Of My Dead Twin Hostage To Their Purposes.

Ironically, the SBS documentary was released in Korea on December 24th, 2022, AFTER I was blocked by DKRG from their forums on December 7th, 2022. DKRG was still determined to use me for their purposes.

In true DKRG fashion, without my permission, they posted my password-protected video on a PUBLIC forum managed by one of their leaders. I had only shared the video to private Korean Adoptee forums, and had asked specifically that it not be shared to any PUBLIC or non-Adoptee spaces. After I discovered that my video had been shared to a PUBLIC forum which was administrated by a DKRG leader, for YEARS, I begged another administrator, a DKRG supporter and Korean Adoptee to remove my video, but he flatly refused to do so. It wasn't until 2025, after three long years, that another administrator finally took it down.

The fact that DKRG co-opted my KSS K-Number research which I had conducted as part of my dead twin’s switch case was already a significant violation, but having the SBS documentary I worked tirelessly on for a year exploited as well felt like salt in a deep wound. It was in fact after I had returned from Korea to the US in 2022 to film the SBS documentary that DKRG blocked me from all of their online groups, thus completely deflating my spirit after an amazing time filming with SBS in Korea, and paving the way for me to remove my TRCK case in March 2023. This ensured that I could get no justice for my twin through the TRCK. I am not a crier, but I agonized so much over my decision that it felt as though my head were splitting, and I cried bitterly when I finally withdrew my TRCK case.

It’s been 2 torturous years since.

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Post-Mortem:

In 2024, after FRONTLINE filmed my story in both the U.S. and Korea starting in June 2023, I waited over a year only to discover that I received no recognition in the final documentary—just a single second of screen time. This was a significant blow for my efforts to highlight the systemic issues surrounding switching in Korean adoption. Unfortunately, credit for this work, at least in the FRONTLINE documentary, has now been tacitly attributed by FRONTLINE Director Lora Moftah to AP reporter Tong-hyung Kim.

On March 26, 2025, the TRCK Interim Report was released during a press conference in Seoul. Ironically, the report appears to be a far less informative and poorly organized version of Paperslip, which is not surprising given the extensive groundwork I have done since 2018. Interestingly, despite KSS being one of the smallest Korean Adoption Agencies, most of the paperwork evidence presented in the TRCK Interim Report comes primarily from KSS Adoptees - not from Holt, a FAR larger Korean Adoption Agency. This can largely be attributed to Paperslip's efforts since 2020 to both educate and inform the global KSS Adoptee community on how to obtain essential documentation from KSS.

I am gratified that, largely due to my work, Switching was acknowledged by the S. Korean government as a human rights abuse against Adoptees (even if the TRCK did not get the definition of switching quite right). I am glad that my groundbreaking work into the systemic nature of switching helped to bring to light this abominable practice. However, my role in the TRCK should NEVER have been erased.

I wish I could explain WHY so many would be “advocates” for Korean Adoptees have attempted to claim my work about the systemic issues surrounding switching in Korean adoption, as well as my research into KSS, which originated from my and my dead twin’s switch cases. Unfortunately, the temptation of taking credit for groundbreaking research has overshadowed any sense of ethics. I truly hope Karma is real, as these individuals truly deserve the consequences of their actions.

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The End Of The TRCK And The Closing Of A Chapter.

On April 4, 2025, S. Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld the impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol. On that day, I spoke with a political insider in Seoul who indicated that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea (TRCK) is likely to be sidelined by the impending presidential election, which by law must be held within 60 days of the Court’s decision—around June 3, 2025. The focus on the election suggests that the 311 out of 367 TRC cases concerning Korean Adoptees, which were either labeled "pending" or unresolved by March 26, 2025, are likely to be dropped by the TRCK, which is set to conclude its operations in May 2025. This means that 311 of the original 367 Korean Adoptees who originally submitted their cases to the TRCK may have waited three years for personal investigations into their cases for nothing. While other stakeholders in the TRCK may advocate for a new structure and chairperson, my source believes the likelihood of establishing a new TRCK in the near future is low, given the upcoming election.

Ironically, only 54 of the original 367 cases of Korean Adoptees were found by the TRCK to have contained proof of human rights abuses. Had I not withdrawn my case in March 2023 due to DKRG’s actions, my case would very likely have been ruled upon favorably, given my strong evidence and the fact that I was among the first 34 cases accepted by the TRCK. However, once trust is broken, it can never be restored. I’m relieved I did not submit the evidence in my twin’s switch case to the TRCK, as switching has now been acknowledged without her evidence falling into the hands of those who would only tarnish her sacred memory.

Despite efforts to silence me, my twin's message grew stronger through our shared determination. With this chapter now closed, the journey toward healing can truly begin.

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In Memory Of My Twin Sister “Baby A”
1975-1976?

Others Have Erased You
But I Will Speak For The Dead.

15 20 8 5 18 19 8 1 22 5 5 18 1 19 5 4 25 15 21
2 21 20 9 23 9 12 12 19 16 5 1 11 6 15 18 20 8 5 4 5 1 4

THE MEMORIAL IS THE TRUTH.