ABSTRACT
Korea is a small peninsula in Far East Asia with a little over seventy-one million people living in 85,228 square miles (CIA, 2005). Forcefully divided for sixty years, Korea is the only remaining vestige of the old East-West ideological conflicts in the world today. Once known as “a Hermit Kingdom” to the Western world, the nation’s history goes back to 2,333 BC with her distinctive cultural heritage throughout various political triumphs and turmoil for many centuries. For the past half-century, Korea has experienced a tragic civil war, dire poverty, rapid social change, vigorous industrialization, and political unrest, all in the context of national division and conflict between the North and South. Historical development of this divided small peninsula has been the stage on which the drama of massive and permanent child transfer and placement was performed beyond national, racial, and cultural boundaries to create an international adoption practice in the global community.
