How Adoptions to the USA & Sweden Tore Families Apart One Orphan Every Hour.

On 2 Oct 2025, South Korea’s president apologised for the first time over state-sanctioned malpractices in sending tens of thousands of children overseas for adoption, saying “unjust human rights violations” were committed. 

Nearly 250,000 South Korean children were adopted to the West as “orphans” in the 60 years following the Korean War. Some to loving homes. Others to tragic ends. Raised in places where they looked like nobody else, many were told to forget their past and be grateful. But the innate desire to understand where you came from has led many Korean adoptees to search for their roots. In the process, they discover lies in their past and families they never knew existed. In this documentary, correspondent Wei Du travels around the world to meet Korean adoptees and accompany a few on their journey to reclaim who they are.

Together, they reveal how an “orphan rescue” mission separated families and erased the roots of hundreds of thousands.