South Korea grants extension to truth commission as investigators examine foreign adoption cases

By KIM TONG-HYUNG
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s presidential office says it has approved a request by the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission for a one-year extension after investigators sought more time to examine human rights violations linked to past military governments. That includes the widespread falsifying of child origins that fueled a foreign adoption boom in the 1970s and ’80s. The commission’s investigators are struggling to handle thousands of cases. About 200,000 South Koreans were adopted to the West in the past six decades, creating what’s believed to be the world’s largest diaspora of adoptees.