19/07/2025

SATURDAY | JULY 19, 2025

8

Korea to end private agency adoptions

The junta’s offer of a gilded olive branch matches a tactic used by its opponents, who have previously tried to tempt military deserters with cash rewards. The “National Unity Government”, a self-proclaimed administration in exile dominated by ousted lawmakers, has called the junta’s call for cooperation “a strategy filled with deception aimed at legitimising their power-consolidating sham election”. – AFP rights of all adopted children,” said Health and Welfare Ministry population and child policy director Kim Sang-hee. Activists say the measure should be merely a starting point and warn that it is far from sufficient. “While I think it is high time that Korea closes down all private adoption agencies, I do not believe that having the state handle new adoptions is enough,” said writer Lisa Wool-Rim Sjoblom, a Korean adoptee who grew up in Sweden. The government should prioritise implementing the findings of the truth commission, issue an official apology and work to help the tens of thousands of Koreans who were sent abroad for adoption, she told AFP. “The government urgently needs to acknowledge all the human rights violations it enabled, encouraged and systematically participated in, and as soon as possible, begin reparations.” – AFP

overcame post-war poverty and faced rapid and aggressive economic development. But the system failed children, the truth commission said in March, with a failure to follow “proper legal consent procedures” for South Korean birth parents resulting in highly publicised reports of lost children being put up for overseas adoption. Commission chairperson Park Sun-young said it was a “shameful part” of South Korea’s history. Under the new system, key procedures, such as assessing prospective adoptive parents and matching them with children, would be deliberated by a ministry committee, in accordance with the principle of the “best interests of the child”. Previously, this had been done by major adoption agencies, with minimal oversight from the state. “With this restructuring of the public adoption system, the state takes full responsibility for ensuring the safety and

truth commission found. The independent body established by the state called for an official apology and blamed the government for the issues, especially a failure to regulate adoption fees, which effectively turned it into a profit-driven industry. Today, South Korea introduces a “newly restructured public adoption system, under which the state and local governments take full responsibility for the entire adoption process”, its Health and Welfare Ministry said. The change is a “significant step towards ensuring the safety and promoting the rights of adopted children”, the ministry added. International adoption began after the Korean War as a way to remove mixed-race children, born to Korean mothers and American soldier fathers, from a country that emphasised ethnic homogeneity. It became a big business in the 1970s to 1980s, bringing international adoption agencies millions of dollars as South Korea

SEOUL: South Korea is set to overhaul its adoption system today by ending the decades-old practice of outsourcing adoptions to private agencies, which has led to widespread allegations of abuse. South Korea sent more than 140,000 children overseas between 1955 and 1999. This year, an official enquiry concluded that the international adoption process had been riddled with irregularities, including “fraudulent orphan registrations, identity tampering and inadequate vetting of adoptive parents”. The rights of South Korean children had been violated, the landmark investigation by a o New system under govt vital to ensure safety, rights of children: Ministry

Myanmar junta offers cash reward to armed group defectors YANGON: Myanmar’s junta said yesterday it is offering cash rewards to fighters willing to desert armed groups defying its rule and “return to the legal fold” ahead of a slated election. the year as a pathway to peace. Such plans have been denounced as a sham by opposition groups and international monitors. statement pledging to “welcome” defectors two weeks ago. “These individuals chose to abandon the path of armed struggle due to their desire to live peacefully within the framework of the law.“

State media The Global New Light of Myanmar said: “Individuals who returned to the legal fold with arms and ammunition are being offered specific cash rewards.” The junta mouthpiece did not specify how much cash it is offering but said 14 anti-coup fighters had surrendered since it issued a

The Southeast Asian country has been consumed by civil war since a 2021 coup, with the junta facing an array of pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic armed rebels. After suffering major battlefield reverses, the military has touted elections around the end of

Nine were members of ethnic armed groups while five were from the pro-democracy “People’s Defence Forces”, formed after the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected civilian government four years ago.

RETURN TO THE WILD ... Baby elephants that have been nursed back to health being released by the Udawalawe Elephant Transit Home into the Mau Ara forest area in Sri Lanka. – AFPPIC

African swine fever spreads in Vietnam HANOI: African swine fever outbreaks are spreading in Vietnam, threatening to disrupt food supplies in the Southeast Asian country, the government warned yesterday.

government agencies this week to deploy measures to address the disease. Vietnam in 2023 approved the domestic commercial use of its first homegrown African swine fever vaccines but officials said the rate of vaccinated pigs remains low. “Only about 30% of the pigs in my province have been vaccinated,“ said an animal health official of Quang Ngai province, where infections have been reported. “It is not clear why the rate is low. It could be the issue of vaccine availability, efficiency or cost,“ said another provincial official, who declined to be named as the individual was not authorised to speak to the media. The Agriculture Ministry Animal Health Department did not respond to a request for comment. Calls to Avac Vietnam JSC, the country’s main African swine fever vaccine producer, went unanswered. – Reuters

Vietnam has this year detected 514 outbreaks in 28 out of 34 cities and provinces nationwide, the government said in a statement, adding that authorities have culled more than 30,000 infected pigs. “The risk of African swine fever is on a rising trend, negatively affecting the pig farming industry, food supplies and the environment.“ African swine fever has disrupted the global pork market for years. In the worst outbreak in 2018-2019, about half the domestic pig population died in China, causing losses of about US$100 billion (RM425 billion). The recent outbreaks in Vietnam have prompted Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh to send an urgent directive to provinces and