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The Vance Twins Childhood Story
Details of the Vance Twins’ Childhood Story…
Jenette and Janine were told they had been abandoned on a South Korean street in 1972.
They believed this assertion written in their adoption file for over thirty years. The adoption agency alleged they were ‘found by a stranger’ when they were discovered and, consequently, taken to be processed for overseas adoption. A couple from the United States with two young sons adopted the babies when they were six months old. The twins grew up in a typical American family fraught with unusual challenges and additional burdens.
After the twins’ adoptive mother passed away in 1997, Janine became increasingly curious about their adoption story.
At age twenty-five, she started researching and discovered that many international adoptions were often marred by corruption, fraud, and injustice. Janine’s curiosity turned insatiable; Vance became a full-time researcher and writer determined to unravel the truth about how children from around the world had been obtained for adoption. She wrote extensively about its history, aftermath on the people most impacted, including families separated by adoption, and their surrounding concerns. Several of Janine’s books have won international acclaim from book clubs and contests.
Jenette took a different career path, working in healthcare for thirty years.
Throughout those years, she fully supported Janine’s work and would often help her with marketing her articles and books while managing a forum the twins established in 2011 called Adoption Truth and Transparency Worldwide Information Network (AT TWIN). They invited domestic, late-discovery, transracial, and overseas adoptees to participate, families separated by adoption, and parents of loss to discuss adoption-related concerns. The forum now has more than eight thousand members worldwide.
The twins established Adoption Truth and Transparency Worldwide Information Network (ATTWIN) in 2011.
The twins use ATTWIN to collaborate with adult adoptee-led groups in private and stay informed by members forced to cope with antiquated adoption laws. Each member raises awareness in their unique way based on personal experience about the impact of unjust adoptions on adoptees and their families.
Recently, the Vance twins learned the truth about their adoptions from a report by South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The Vance twins, whose cases were included in the original 56 cases being investigated, recently learned at age fifty that their adoptions had been “illegal and a serious human rights violation,” according to the recent report completed by South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The research findings confirmed their original suspicions that the adoption agency sourced children en masse for a lucrative overseas adoption program.
Even in the face of adversity, they continue to fight for justice and change.
Jenette and Janine’s story is not just about adoption but about the power of siblings, resilience, and the importance of using one’s voice to fight for what is right. They are a testament to the fact that even in the most difficult circumstances, one can find a path to success and make a meaningful impact on the world.