They were looking for us for 45 years. She and her brother had not known.
For decades, thousands of South Korean children were handed to Danish families under falsified records and fabricated stories of abandonment — a quiet machinery of displacement that states on both sides chose not to examine too closely. Now, eight adoptees are asking Denmark to do what South Korea has already done: look directly at what was done in the name of compassion. Their lawsuit is not merely a legal claim for damages, but a demand that a nation reckon with the distance between its self-image and its conduct. In the long human story of children separated from their origins by institutional convenience, this case asks whether accountability can arrive late and still mean something.
- Eight South Korean-born adoptees are suing the Danish state, alleging it knowingly facilitated falsified adoption records that severed thousands of children from families who never consented to give them up.
- A 2024 government report confirmed Danish agencies were aware their South Korean partners altered children's identities — yet Denmark paid tens of millions of kroner to keep the adoptions flowing and has since refused to comment.
- South Korea issued a formal apology in 2025 for what it called unjust human rights violations, sharpening the contrast with Denmark's continued silence and exposing a stark asymmetry in how the two nations are confronting shared wrongdoing.
- Plaintiffs like Sofie Randel, who reunited with siblings who had searched for her for forty-five years, and Sidse Koch Jorgensen, whose father never consented to her adoption, embody the human cost of records designed to erase rather than protect.
- Denmark froze international adoptions in 2024 after systemic malpractices came to light, but adoptees argue that suspension without admission of responsibility is not accountability — it is the same silence wearing a different face.
- Each plaintiff seeks 250,000 kroner in damages, but the deeper demand is for the Danish government to replace the story of rescue it has long told with the story of what it actually knew and chose to allow.
Sofie Randel was three years old when she arrived in Denmark in 1977 with her younger brother, her Korean still fluent enough that her adoptive father recorded her voice on cassette tape. For decades she believed the story her adoption papers told: that she and her brother had been found abandoned on the street. When she finally traced her history in 2023, she found something else. Her mother had placed them temporarily in an orphanage during financial hardship, expecting to reclaim them. Instead, they were sent to Denmark. Her three older siblings in South Korea had spent forty-five years searching for them. When the family reunited, Randel was fifty-two.
Randel's story is one thread in a much larger fabric. Between 1970 and 1989, Danish adoption agencies placed 7,220 South Korean children with Danish families, nearly all told they were street orphans. A 2024 report by Denmark's National Social Appeals Board confirmed that state-run agencies knew their South Korean partners sometimes altered children's identities — and that Danish agencies paid roughly 54 million kroner to facilitate these adoptions. More than 140,000 South Korean children were separated from biological families through such arrangements between 1955 and 1999.
Sidse Koch Jorgensen, a fifty-three-year-old physiotherapist and fellow plaintiff, discovered the truth about her own adoption in 2013. Years of searching eventually led to an email: her father had been found. When they met, she learned her mother had sent her to a care facility while her father was abroad — without his knowledge. The child never arrived. She was sent to Denmark instead. "I want the Danish government to take responsibility for showing so much neglect," she said. "They were the authorities who were supposed to check everything."
Now eight adoptees are suing Denmark for 250,000 kroner each in damages, demanding the state formally acknowledge that it knew records were falsified and families separated without consent. South Korea issued an official apology in 2025. Denmark has declined to comment. Peter Moller, who leads an association defending adoptees' rights, put the contrast plainly: Korea had the courage to look at what it had done, while Denmark prefers to sweep it under the rug. Denmark froze international adoptions in 2024 — a recognition that something went wrong. But for the plaintiffs, a freeze is not a reckoning. They want Denmark to stop telling the story of rescue and start telling the story of what it chose to do.
Sofie Randel was three years old when she stepped off a plane in Denmark in 1977, her younger brother at her side. She spoke Korean fluently then—so fluently that her adoptive father recorded her voice on a cassette tape, capturing the cadence of a child who had only recently left her first home. That tape would sit in a drawer for decades, gathering dust, until 2023, when Randel handed it to a journalist and began asking questions about the story she had always been told.
According to her Danish adoption papers, Randel and her brother had been abandoned on the street, their names and ages pinned to their clothes like tags on lost luggage. It was a narrative that made sense within the framework of international adoption in the 1970s—children without families, rescued by compassionate Western nations. But when Randel traced her own history backward, following the threads of her childhood voice and conducting research in South Korea, she discovered something else entirely. Her mother had not abandoned them. She had entrusted them to an orphanage while the family weathered financial hardship, expecting to reclaim them when circumstances improved. Instead, the children were sent to Denmark as part of a vast, state-sanctioned machinery of adoption that would eventually displace more than 140,000 South Korean children between 1955 and 1999.
Back in South Korea, Randel's three older siblings never stopped looking for her and her brother. They searched for forty-five years. When the siblings finally reunited in 2023, Randel was fifty-two years old. "They were looking for us for 45 years," she said, her voice breaking. "She and her brother had not known anyone was looking for them." What Randel had believed was abandonment was actually something far more deliberate: a system that obscured origins, falsified records, and told children a story designed to sever them from their pasts.
Denmark's role in this machinery is now the subject of a lawsuit filed by eight South Korean-born adoptees. Between 1970 and 1989 alone, Danish adoption agencies facilitated the placement of 7,220 South Korean children, nearly all of whom were told they were street orphans. A 2024 report by Denmark's National Social Appeals Board revealed that the state-run agencies knew their South Korean partners sometimes altered children's identities. Danish media reported that the agencies paid approximately 54 million kroner—roughly 8.4 million dollars—to make these adoptions happen. Yet Denmark has resisted accountability. In October 2025, South Korea issued an official apology for what it called "unjust human rights violations." Denmark, by contrast, has preferred silence. When contacted by journalists, the Danish social affairs ministry declined to comment.
Sidse Koch Jorgensen, a fifty-three-year-old physiotherapist and one of the plaintiffs, discovered the gap between her adoption narrative and her actual history in 2013, when she made her first trip to South Korea to search for her biological family. She spent years piecing together fragments. Then, one month before she was scheduled to leave on a subsequent visit, she received an email: they had found her father. When she met him, she learned that her mother had sent her to a "camp" for care while her father was abroad—without his knowledge or consent. The child never made it to the camp. Instead, she was sent to Denmark for adoption. "It's a human right to know your identity and also to have the possibility to have contact with your biological family," Jorgensen said, her anger evident. "I want the Danish government to take responsibility for showing so much neglect. They were the authorities who were supposed to check everything."
The eight plaintiffs are each seeking 250,000 kroner—approximately 38,800 dollars—in damages. They are demanding that Denmark acknowledge its role not just in facilitating adoptions, but in systematically obscuring the truth about how those adoptions occurred. Peter Moller, who heads an association defending South Korean adoptees' rights, framed the contrast starkly: "As a Dane, I believed that Denmark was on the side of the good and that Korea, as a former dictatorship, was on the side of the bad guys. But Korea had the courage to look what it had done straight in the eye while Denmark prefers to sweep everything under the rug."
In 2024, Denmark froze international adoptions after a series of serious problems with adoption practices came to light. The freeze was a recognition that something had gone wrong. But for the adoptees now suing, recognition is not enough. They want the state to say it knew what it was doing, that it knew the records were false, that it knew families were being separated without consent, and that it chose to proceed anyway. They want Denmark to stop telling the story of rescue and to start telling the story of what actually happened.
Notable Quotes
It's a human right to know your identity and also to have the possibility to have contact with your biological family.— Sidse Koch Jorgensen, adoptee and plaintiff
Korea had the courage to look what it had done straight in the eye while Denmark prefers to sweep everything under the rug.— Peter Moller, head of South Korean adoptees' rights association
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does it matter that Sofie Randel's father recorded her voice on a cassette tape?
Because it's evidence of who she was before the adoption machinery reshaped her story. That tape captured her speaking Korean, being a child with a recent past. When she listened to it decades later, it contradicted everything she'd been told about herself.
The adoptees were told they were street orphans. Why was that lie so effective?
Because it absolved everyone. It made the adoption seem like rescue rather than extraction. If a child was abandoned, no one had to answer for separating them from a family that wanted them back. The lie protected the system.
South Korea apologized in 2025. What does Denmark's silence mean?
It means Denmark is betting that the story will fade. An apology is an admission of responsibility. Silence is a refusal to admit anything at all, even when the evidence is documented in official reports.
Sidse Koch Jorgensen's mother sent her to a camp. How does that become an international adoption?
That's the machinery at work. A child is placed in temporary care. Someone in that chain—an orphanage director, an adoption broker—decides the child is available for export. The paperwork gets altered. The child disappears into another country's family. The mother never knows what happened.
What are the adoptees actually asking for with this lawsuit?
They're asking Denmark to stop pretending it didn't know. The 2024 report proves the agencies knew identities were being changed. The adoptees want the state to say: we knew, we did it anyway, and we're responsible for the consequences.