‘Baby exporter’ confronts the past

Sorensen with her Danish mother, Lilian Hansen, 72, and father, Bent Hansen, 74, on the coast of Korsor, Denmark. South Korean adoptees have been returning to the country to hold the government accountable for what they call a corrupt and predatory adoption system. — ©2023 The New York Times Company

MIA Lee Sorensen’s Danish parents used to tell her that her birth family in South Korea had put her up for adoption. According to her adoption papers, she was born prematurely in 1987 to a family that could not afford her medical bills and wished for her to have a “good future” abroad.

But when Sorensen found her birth parents in South Korea last year, they could not believe she was alive. They told her that her mother had passed out during labour and that when she woke up, the clinic told her that the baby had died.