Singapore: Australian adoptees say South Korea must act to make it easier for adoption records to be accessed and families to reunite, after the country’s leader apologised for human rights violations caused by its overseas adoption program.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung offered a “heartfelt apology and words of comfort” on behalf of the country to adoptees, their parents and birth parents in a Facebook post on Thursday, acknowledging the “anxiety, pain, and confusion” many had endured.

A government apology was one of the key recommendations of South Korea’s landmark Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Earlier this year, the inquiry concluded that systemic fraud and abuse had plagued the country’s privatised adoption program, including falsified orphan registrations, leading

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