One Orphan Every Hour
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.
She went searching for answers
THE MEDIA CAME SEARCHING FOR HER
In the 60 years following the Korean War, nearly 250,000 children were sent abroad for adoption. Like 90 per cent of these children, Mary Bowers was told she was an orphan. But when she investigated her own adoption files, she uncovered a web of fabricated stories.
In the decades since the Korean war ended, 200,000 children have been adopted to families worldwide. Now as adults many adoptees are coming back, desperate for information about their birth parents and the circumstances of their adoptions.
Beyond Borders
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![Truth and Reconciliation Commission Chairperson Park Sun Young, right, comforts adoptee Yooree Kim during a press conference in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)]()
South Korea says it sent babies abroad for adoption ‘like luggage’
April 2, 2025
Since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s, South Korea provided an estimated 200,000 children for international adoptions. That’s believed to be more than any other country. But the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Korea now says the system was plagued with abuse and falsified information, and that it was driven by profits. The new report has been a long time coming for adoptees who have been pushing for more transparency.
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![Later in life as adults, many adoptees feel a pull to return to Korea (Foreign Correspondent: Matt Davis)]()
Seoul Searching
May 2, 2024
Since the end of the Korean War 71 years ago, about 200,000 children have been adopted from South Korea to families around the world.
Figures from the South Korean government show adoption peaked in 1985 when there were 8,837 children sent abroad – an average of 24 a day.
The turning point came during the 1988 Seoul Olympics when the world’s media took notice, describing babies as Korea’s “primary export”.
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![Mary Bowers was adopted by Bill and Cindy Bowers from Greeley in 1982. (Photo provided by Mary Bowers)]()
Colorado-raised competitive eater will try to beat her record at Nathan’s hot dog-eating contest
July 3, 2023
On our nation’s birthday this year, Mary Bowers plans to raise awareness about her own unusual American story — and those of other children — in a very American way: with hot dogs.
Bowers, who is ranked No. 49 among competitive eaters, and No. 11 among women, was born in South Korea and adopted as a five-month-old in 1982 by Billy and Cindy Bowers of Greeley.
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![Bowers unforgettable meeting with Hoffman was at the Nathan's Contest (Photo courtesy of Mary Bowers)]()
A Most Noble Search
December 12, 2022
Ken Hoffman reunites with Houston's top-ranked competitive eater who's searching for her birth parents.
In early 2020, just before the start of the COVID pandemic, something stirred in Bowers. She sold everything that didn’t fit in to two suitcases and moved to South Korea, an hour outside of Seoul, in a quest to find her biological parents – and she says – herself.
