Seoul: President Lee Jae Myung on Thursday apologized for the suffering experienced by overseas adoptees in the past and vowed stronger efforts to protect their rights. Lee issued the message on Facebook a day after South Korea formally became a contracting party to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, completing full ratification 12 years after signing the pact.

According to Yonhap News Agency, recalling the country’s troubled history, Lee noted that South Korea was once stigmatized as a “child-exporting country,” having sent more than 170,000 children abroad for adoption since the 1950-53 Korean War, according to official records. He also acknowledged cases of human rights violations in the process.

“My heart is still very heavy when I think of the anxiety, pain and confusion overseas adoptees must have felt after being sent to a foreign land, unable even to speak their mother tongue,” Lee wrote.

“On behalf of the Republic of Korea, I extend my heartfelt apology and words of comfort to overseas adoptees, their families and their birth families who have suffered,” he added, referring to South Korea’s official name.

Lee stressed that the enforcement in July of the Special Act on Domestic Adoption and the Special Act on Intercountry Adoption has provided the domestic legal basis to implement the convention. “Relevant ministries should closely cooperate to safeguard the rights of adoptees and to establish a human rights-centered adoption system, and come up with effective support measures to assist overseas adoptees in tracing their roots,” he added.