Korea's adoptions rise to 122 as health ministry reviews overhaul

South Korea's health ministry said Friday that 122 children had been matched with adoptive families as of the end of September, up from 16 at the end of March, after the government overhauled adoption procedures to ease a backlog created by its own 2025 reorganization.

The ministry attributed the increase to a package of measures introduced on March 19, when it moved applications online, doubled the number of basic training sessions for prospective adoptive parents to four a month and added training sites in Daejeon, Daegu and elsewhere. It hired 13 more staff to carry out home-environment assessments and increased the frequency of the subcommittees that review matches between parents and children to twice a month from once. Completed home assessments rose to 322 families by late September from 109, while families that finished basic training doubled to 652.

The figures were presented at the third meeting of the Adoption Policy Committee, which reviewed progress since July 2025, when the government transferred responsibility for the entire adoption process from private agencies to the state, local governments and public institutions.

About 240,000 documents handed over from private agencies are being held in temporary storage while they are tested for harmful bacteria and insects this month and treated. The ministry aims to move the first cleaned batches to the National Archives between November and December.

Requests for adoption information have been processed faster after the ministry increased dedicated staff to 20 from five and began releasing redacted records first, while it verifies whether biological parents consent to disclosure. The processing rate rose to about 26 percent at the end of August from about 16 percent at the end of June. It plans to link that service with post-adoption support, including help arranging meetings with biological parents.

"The ultimate aim of public adoption is a society where every child grows up healthy in a happy family and where adoptees can fully find and have their identities respected," Health Minister Jung Eun-kyung said. She added that the ministry would reflect feedback from the field and move faster to improve the process so that children can meet warm families at the right time.