Regarding The Future Of Birth Family Search Through:
NCRC (National Center for the Rights of the Child) and KAS (Korea Adoption Services).

Posted to Paperslip on April 1st, 2025.

We have heard the following about the future of birth family search from a reliable person who recently visited NCRC. 

Below is the information shared with us: 

“The social worker told me that the birth family search procedure will remain the same (as it was previously through the KAS / Korea Adoption Service portal). There might be minor changes to the application form after July 19th, 2025, but the overall procedure will not change, so adoptees can continue to apply for their birth search through the NCRC / KAS website:

https://www.kadoption.or.kr/en/root/adpt_info.jsp

The only differences before and after July 19th, 2025 are:

(1) After July 19th, 2025, NCRC will be the sole organization responsible for handling birth searches (instead of Korean Adoption Agencies).

(2) After July 19th, 2025, NCRC will have the exclusive authority to decide what kind of information will be released to adoptees (instead of Korean Adoption Agencies).

I asked whether there was any additional information (or documents) they had already decided to start releasing, but she said NCRC is still in the process of collecting all the documents from adoption agencies to find out what kind of information the adoption agencies have. Once they have reviewed the collected information, they will be able to determine what can be released. 

She also mentioned that they will likely have to pause birth search requests for 3 months (June, July, August) to take care of the backlog of requests they have already received. They plan to resume accepting new birth search requests in September. (I asked for a specific date in September, but she couldn't provide one since it hasn't been decided yet.) She asked an Adoptee to contact them in September again to apply for another birth search. 

During the meeting, the only clear information she provided was that NCRC will be solely responsible for handling birth searches. But other than that, nothing has been decided/ finalized. I pointed out that they have just a little over 3 months left and that NCRC should speed up its preparations, but she said they still need to coordinate with the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) to discuss how to handle everything. Since no decisions have been made yet, there is currently no official guidance.”