Adoption Truth and Transparency

For the Audio Interview, visit here: Exposing the Adoption Truth & Supporting Those In Need

Excerpt from The Last American Vagabond: Part 3 Organizations Exposing the Truth

The Search for Mother Missing: A Peek Inside International Adoption

Janine Vance and her twin sister, Jenette, were adopted in 1972 from Seoul, South Korea to the United States. At 25 years old, shortly after her adoptive mother passed away, she and her sister discovered that they were not U.S. citizens.

In 2004, the Vance twins went to Seoul, South Korea for the 50th Anniversary gathering for overseas adoptees from Seoul. “There were about 450 Korean-born adoptees who traveled to Seoul to contemplate overseas adoption,” Vance told TLAV.

It was at this gathering that the twins discovered there were Korean parents who were searching for their children. “That came to us as a complete surprise because we had always been told that we were unwanted, we were orphans, we were abandoned,” she stated. “That kind of triggered my investigation into how are the children obtained exactly.”

The twins soon discovered that adoption agencies around the world have been caught claiming children have been abandoned by their parents, or that the birth parents have died. As part of her investigation, Janine Vance began to read the memoirs of the pioneers of international adoption from Seoul.

“The pioneers were actually faith-based evangelicals who built the overseas child welfare system, and actually have a huge impact, and influence on the system which has now exploded to overseas adoption all over the world.”

Adoption Truth was Founded in 2011

In 2011, the Vance twins started the Adoption Truth and Transparency Worldwide Information Network. The organization advocates for adoptees and provides validation for families who have experienced the trauma of adoption. Through its website and social media pages, Adoption Truth highlights the reality of the adoption industry, which most Americans are painfully unaware of.

Janine Vance says Adoption Truth differs from other adoption groups because they do not silence people who have negative experiences with adoption. She said they put a priority on the voices of families who have been separated by adoption, and adopted people as adults who want to talk about the truths relating to the adoption industry without being shamed.

“The people who’ve been influenced by these adoption agencies, they have these knee-jerk reactions to us that we are “anti-adoption” when really we are questioning the way that children are obtained for adoption,” Vance shared with TLAV.

Janine Vance says Adoption Truth differs from other adoption groups because it does not silence people who have negative experiences with adoption. She said it prioritizes the voices of families who have been separated by adoption and adopted people as adults who want to talk about the truths relating to the adoption industry without being shamed.

“The people who’ve been influenced by these adoption agencies, they have these knee-jerk reactions to us that we are “anti-adoption” when really we are questioning the way that children are obtained for adoption,” Vance shared with TLAV.

The Korean Adoption Industry

Janine traces history of adoption back to the Catholic Church in Europe in 1618, and then to the America’s in 1850’s.

“Then, in the 1950’s, after the Korean War ended, the evangelicals and missionaries began coming to Korea and started the demand for children,” Rev. Dr. Janine Vance explained.

From there, she says, the Korean model of adoption became seen as the standard model for overseas adoptions. “The reason why it has that reputation is because everything became legalized, they created adoption laws that made it legal to do, what a lot of adoptees believe is child trafficking,” Vance shared.

The model then continued to be exported to South America, Africa, India, and other parts of the developing world. In recent years the Korean adoption industry has begun to hit the mainstream news, including a focus on the Holt adoption firm responsible for the Vance Twins adoptions.

In 2023, as they came to understand the depths of the Korean adoption industry, Janine and Jenette sent a special request to the Korean government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, asking them to end overseas adoptions. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established in 2005 to investigate atrocities in Korean history.

The Vance Twins are calling on the Korean government to “finally end overseas adoption 70 years after the Korean War ended AND to refrain from ratifying the Hague Adoption Convention, which was created and monitored by the adoption lobby itself to legitimize child trafficking”.

The Vance twins sent the commission their adoption files to investigate their adoption, as well as the hundreds of other Korean-born adoptees who were sent to the U.S. and Europe.

“The document also explains exactly how overseas adoption is child trafficking,” Janine Vance noted.

The document was endorsed by Saving Our Sisters, the National Association of Adoptees & Parents, Adoptees with Guatemalan Roots, the Family Preservation Project, Adoptee Rights Australia Inc., and dozens of other family preservation/adoptee advocate organizations. The Vance twins are also seeking additional signatories.

Janine and her sister have also launched several other projects aimed at raising awareness on the issue of international adoption. They organized the “Adoption Trafficking Awareness Symposium“, a unique gathering of adoptees and advocates that refused to take money from big donors associated with the major adoption firms.

Janine is also behind AdoptionHistory.org, which she describes as “an effort to get the perspectives of adopted people — based on inherent, God-given and natural human rights and natural law — out into the mainstream.” She says the website is focused on adding educational resources on the adoption crisis which are “devoid of faith-based industry advertising campaigns” and marketing ploys which “deceptively hail faith-based agencies as “saviors” and also proclaim they speak for and work for God”.

“One of the things I would ask of the public is don’t vilify us or persecute us, and say that we’re “anti-adoption”. In the adoption world that is the equal to being “anti-Jesus”, “anti-Christian”, “anti-religion”,”

“Really what we’re doing is we’re on the side of families, and natural human rights, and reuniting communities.”