#offering children

Foreigners give babies to ‘Moonies’ The Anniston Star January 23, 1989

MOBILE (AP) – An investigator with the Mobile County Sheriff’s Department remains baffled by three adoption cases involving foreign couples that a Unification Church member said was motivated simply by love. “Why have these people come from these different countries to give their children to these particular people?” said Lark Dodd. But Ms. Dodd said her investigation into the cases was closed since no wrongdoing was discovered. Two of the foreign couples who traveled to Mobile to have their babies gave custody of the newborns to Unification Church members. A third couple returned to Canada with their infant son after the state launched an investigation. An attorney for the Unification church said the church has not arranged the adoptions or instructed members to have babies and give them to church members. “To the best of my knowledge these relationships were developed by the individuals themselves,” with no guidance from the church, said David Hagar, an attorney at the Unification Church’s New York office. Workers at Spring Hill Memorial Hospital told The Birmingham News that the Canadian woman refused to look at the 9-pound, 12-ounce baby boy she gave birth to on Sept. 21 and told them another woman would pick up the infant.

The bewilderment of hospital officials heightened when a 58-year-old woman appeared, saying she would take custody. “They had no adoption papers,” said Brenda Hutchison, clinical supervisor of the hospital’s pediatric department. “We had nothing that said this woman could have the baby.” While pondering the situation, hospital workers recalled a similar case just two weeks before. A woman from France had a baby boy and said she was giving the baby as a gift to a woman who would pick the child up. That case did have legal adoption papers. “They said, ‘God told me to do this’,” Ms. Hutchison said. “They both said these babies were gifts.” Interviews with law enforcement, hospital and Unification Church officials revealed the adoption cases involved the “Moonies” – followers of Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon. Church members in Bayou La Batre, a hub for Unification Church activity in Alabama, paid for couples to fly to Mobile from Austria, Canada and France to have their babies born as U.S. citizens. Then church members in the coastal community filed for adoption, authorities said. “There’s nothing strange or unusual about the church,” said Martin Porter, president and chairman of Master Marine Inc., a Unification Church-owned shipbuilding business in Bayou La Batre.

Porter said that includes bringing church members from other countries to Mobile to have their babies and give them to Porter and Master Marine’s vice president, Paul Werner. 

Porter explained the motive for such a gift simply: “Why would you do that (give a baby up for adoption to a specific person)?” he asked. “It would be because you have a very deep love for the person. It would only be because they wanted to.” In addition to the babies born in September that Porter and Werner filed to adopt, four months earlier Werner filed for adoption of a baby boy whose mother came from Austria and gave birth at the University of South Alabama Hospital, said Ms. Dodd.

The three adoption cases prompted the state Department of Human Resources to investigate. 

The couple from Canada were forced by a court order to remain in the United States while the case was investigated and their baby was put in state custody. After nearly two months, the couple dropped the adoption procedure.

“They were just blown away… by the legal machinery that was going to come at them,” said Hagar, who flew to Mobile at Werner’s request: “Any time a petition for adoption is filed, we are obliged to make an investigation and report to the (probate) judge,” said Jerry Milner, supervisor of the Department of Human Resources’ office of adoptions. He declined to comment on the case specifically. But it appears the two babies adopted and living with Porter and Werner will remain in their custody, Ms. Dodd said. She said all people involved in the adoption cases were Unification Church members who knew each other personally and could have arranged the adoptions outside official church channels. It would be illegal for the church to play a role in arranging the adoption, she said. 

Ms. Dodd also said Werner told her that he and Porter paid the expenses of the couples who had their babies in Mobile. To pay them a fee would violate state law against child-selling, she said.

Elgen Strait:

Japan and Human Rights Researcher

Global Human Rights Defence

The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare have asked the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (“Unification Church”), a controversial religious group prominent in Japan and Korea, to comply with laws and regulations regarding adoption procedures as it has been reported that there is adoption happening between different members (“Editorial”, 2023). The group once stated "giving up a child for adoption to a family that is not blessed with children is our beautiful tradition.", which confirms the suspicion (“Editorial”, 2023) .

Since 2018, adoption procedures in Japan require permission from prefectural governors when there is a mediating party, however, the Unification Church has not obtained such permission  (“Editorial”, 2023). To avoid this, it stated that they have not been involved as an institution but later it was found that when an agreement happens between two families in the Unification Church, they were obliged to report it to the Home Education Bureau, which is essentially the institution being involved in an adoption  (“Editorial”, 2023). As it was explained above, the Unification Church also recommends childless followers adopt from members with multiple children (“Ex-Unification Church revises handbook”, 2023)

This situation not only means that there are illegal activities being carried out in the institution, but also that children are being stripped away from their families due to the culture of the Unification Church. There have also been remarks from adoptees about the abuse they are subjected to in the family they were adopted by. With these actions, one must turn to the rights of children inscribed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”) which Japan ratified in 1994 (Ratification Status for Japan, 2023).

A potential criminal complaint against the Unification Church over adoption arrangements among its followers will likely not be filed by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry for the time being, it has been learned.

The ministry concluded that it would be difficult to show a violation of the Adoption Mediation Law.

The ministry was unable to conclude that the religious group — officially called the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification — was engaged in mediation because information was not obtained from those who had adopted children from other followers in the past three years. The statute of limitations bars prosecution of cases older than that.

The ministry also took into consideration the fact that the group has abided by administrative guidance.

The law, which went into effect in April 2018, prohibits mediation businesses from operating without permission from prefectural governors. The Unification Church did not obtain this permission, but a number of adoptions were carried out between its followers.

Given this, the ministry launched an investigation last November, suspecting that the group may have engaged in unauthorized mediation of adoptions. The group said a total of 31 children were adopted after the law became effective.

The ministry made a request to the Unification Church to present the adoptive parents’ names and dates of birth in the 31 cases, but the group refused. The group admitted that it had requested that its followers submit “adoption arrangement application forms” in those cases, but it denied that it was involved in organized mediation.

Older adoptees gave testimony to the ministry such as that they were “used as tools for [the group’s] religious principles.” However, the ministry has so far not obtained testimony from adoptive parents who adopted children during the more recent period when a criminal complaint would be possible, and the prospect that the ministry will be able to obtain testimony from them in the future is not clear.

The ministry discussed the matter with investigative authorities, but negative opinions toward the filing of a criminal complaint were heard from the investigative side. For example: “The actual situation of mediation [by the group] is not clear as adoptive parents or biological parents have yet to be identified. It is also difficult to judge whether there was malicious intent.”

Meanwhile, the ministry on Jan. 23 sent a letter of administrative guidance to the group, requesting that expressions in its publications, which could be perceived as the group presenting itself as an intermediary for adoption, be revised in an appropriate manner.

In response, the Unification Church has sent to the ministry the revised publications, which include a request to its followers to report to the group after an adoption arrangement is agreed upon.

Also, a particular statement — “Families with many children have a responsibility to share [them]” — was deleted from the publications.

Ogawa Sayuri, a former member of the Unification Church, told to NTV that her mother felt it was her religious duty to have more children to give away to childless Church members. Two of Ogawa's siblings were sent away via the Church's adoption system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAhQYFI_stc *(Video in Japanese only)

The Japanese government is investigating this practice. According to this Yomiuri article, from 1981 to May 2022, 745 children were adopted among members of the group: https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/20221203-74822/

The Japanese media has recently been discussing the issue of “offering children” and non-legal forms of adoption done in the Unification Church. 

They have unfortunately not accounted for the thousands of Japanese women who lived abroad and were not receiving guidance from the Japanese Blessed Family Department, but their central figures in their own mission countries, including America. These deliveries often required deception in order to secure a free, paperless adoption. These were illegal. They have not yet seem to discuss Cleophas and how he arranged adoptions, which was covered in the Falling Out podcast.

It has come out that despite the Unification Church-assisted adoptions being made illegal in Japan in 2018, dozens of families have received offering children since.

Many of these couples who received offering children already had children from previous relationships, but not from their blessed marriage. They still needed to have a second generation blessed child in order to secure their place in the highest point of Heaven. Their older children, sometimes of which they had more than one, often felt jealous of or less treasured than their younger siblings who were “blessed children.” 

Unification Church "Adoption" of the Second Generation: What was the purpose of my birth?

NHK

November 15, 2022 6:30 p.m. Posted

Close-Up Today has reported on a number of issues concerning the Unification Church. The report includes "high donations," "human rights of the second generation of religious believers," and so on. Currently, the Diet is debating a bill to provide relief to the victims.

Furthermore, information received by our reporter from inside the cult has revealed a "new problem". It is about the "adoption" of children of believers. It is suspected that the cult is actively encouraging families who have had children to give their children up for an adoption to families who have not had children.

The team met with actual "second-generation religious people" who were adopted. During the lengthy interview, they shared their experiences of struggling with the meaning of their own existence, wondering if they had been born as a tool of a religious doctrine.

◆ Why was I the only adopted child...? Struggle of the 2nd Generation

Ms. Youjiyo (pseudonym, female in her 20s) is a former believer who agreed to be interviewed. She still lives with her mother, who is a believer, and her father, who has left the church. Her parents have had a difficult relationship ever since she can remember, and now they only try to communicate with each other through her. Youjiyo hopes to leave home in the near future. However, due to financial difficulties, she is unable to rent a room to live alone.

The "parents" she lives with are her "foster parents," while her "birth parents" are other people.

Youjiyo was put up for an adoption by her parents, who were members of the Unification Church, shortly after she was born. She was four years old when she learned that she was adopted.

Youjiyo-san:

"When I asked them with the curiosity of a child, "How was I born?" They told me, "You are from a different family". I later found out that I had three other siblings, and that somehow I had been separated from my real family and sent to a different family. When I asked myself why I was the only one who had to be adopted, I felt that something was wrong with me and I was abandoned."

◆ Wasn't I born as a tool of doctrine?

Japanese law states that the adoption of a minor child must be in the best interest of the child.

However, a book describing the teachings of the Unification Church stated, "Sharing [children] with families without children is responding to God's desire," and "the Unification Church adoptions are done with God's heart at the center, unlike adoptions done in general."

Furthermore, the Church encourages adoptions by giving awards to believers who give their own children for adoptions. As Youjiyo-san grew older, she began to wonder if she had been born as a tool of the cult's doctrine, and she began to struggle with the meaning of her existence.

Youjiyo-san:

"It is just a thing, literally. A thing used to accomplish a doctrine. Anyway, in the Unification Church, we are told to have as many children as possible, and when we have many children, we are told to have those children adopted for other couples who cannot have children. I can only think that I am being used because they do not have children to make children happy, but to make their parents and, by extension, the church happy. Who am I, why am I here, what am I doing, what am I living for...? I became more and more confused."

Youjiyo, who had lost the meaning of her existence, tried to take her own life away three years ago. Later, at the hospital where she was taken, her adoptive mother's words drove her further into a corner.

Youjiyo:.

"The first thing she said to me was, 'If you commit suicide, you will go to hell'. In the Church, it is said that if a person commits suicide, he or her family will go to hell. I felt the horror of brainwashing, thinking like 'Yeah, you can say that in a situation like this'. It was like a "family game" in which only the form of the doctrine was achieved, or a relationship like a family without any substance. The situation was a living hell for me.

◆ Problems as Seen by Experts

According to the church's handbook published in 2014, the church has established rules for its members to systematically manage adoptions, such as the requirement to report to the Family Education Department "whenever an agreement is reached between two families. In addition, according to former church members, an organization called the "Family Department" at the Church headquarter took the lead in soliciting adoption applications through the local church family departments, and the headquarter "matched" the applications.

Experts point out that the Unification Church is suspected of violating the law by engaging in unlicensed "mediation" of adoptions, which requires a license from the prefectural governor.

Professor Masayuki Tanamura of Waseda University School of Law (a member of the Study Group on the National Adoption System)

"There is a possibility that this issue may violate the Child Welfare Law, the Civil Code, and the Adoption Mediation Law, so we would like the government to conduct a fact-finding survey.

In general, there is no problem for religious organizations to obtain a license for "mediation business" for the welfare of children for charitable purposes or as part of their religious activities, and to do so legally. However, the Unification Church's act this time is to move children from a family with many children to a family with no children, just among its followers. Formally, they may be talking about the interests of the children, but they are not saying, 'If you don't have children, you don't have a complete family. Love is not complete without children.' I believe that mediation has been conducted from a very adult and organizational perspective. I feel that this is a very big problem here.

If adoption is done from a doctrine-first perspective among believers, it may create pressure to force the child to be adopted. Will there be a conflict of interest because we cannot make a neutral and fair decision as to whether the adoption is necessary for the child? Wouldn't such a barter act between believers to achieve the ideal family be different, in terms of the welfare of the child?"

◆ The Church's side of the argument

The Unification Church responded to NHK's interview, stating that the birth in 1981 was the first record of a child being adopted and that 745 adoptions have taken place to date.

He then stated the following.

▼Question

During this interview, several cases were identified in which believing families who had never met each other were matched through the church, and adoptions took place. The lawyer pointed out that "this is an act of adoption agency. Has the church obtained a license from the prefectural governor with jurisdiction over the location of the business office in accordance with the "Law Concerning Protection of Children through Adoption Mediation by Private Mediation Agencies"?

▼Anser

"The adoption system conducted by our organization is different in nature from that of private agencies, and we do not receive any financial compensation from them (for these reasons, we are not licensed as a private agency).

In the last 20 years, the adoption system has shifted from one in which the church is involved to one in which adoptions are conducted between families who wish to adopt.  

▼Question

Several experts, including lawyers and former judges, have pointed out that the parents are taught that they have a "mission and responsibility" to adopt, and that they are encouraged to make a commitment to adopt before conception (pregnancy with the assumption that the child will be adopted), and that the adoption is for the parents' faith and not for the welfare of the child. Furthermore, they point out that it is suspected to be contrary to the purpose of the minor adoption system and the special adoption system. It is also pointed out that the adoption is suspected to be in violation of Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Child Welfare Law. What is the Church's position on this issue?

Several 2nd generations who were given to other families as adopted children have reported the pain of having their human rights violated, saying that they were born as tools of religion when they learned of their origins. What is the Church's response to this?

▼Anser

The adoption process between the believers of our church is carried out through close interaction between the family offering the child for adoption and the family accepting the child, and is carried out in the hope that the second generation of adopted children will be happy. Furthermore, in families that are not blessed with children, the desire to have children has nothing to do with religious belief or non-belief. Nevertheless, your question regarding adoption, which is generally and legally recognized and practiced, as if the adopted child is a "tool of religion" only if the child is adopted by a believer of our organization, is in itself discriminatory and extremely unfair, and the programming policy of your Broadcasting itself is biased and unforgivable and promotes discrimination. Even if there are 2nd generation believers adopted children who believe in this way, if you report on them as if they are all the same, it will lead to all children born through adoption among our believers being regarded as "tools of religion" by the public, which may lead to serious human rights violations. This is a serious violation of human rights. We urge you to stop this kind of biased and discriminatory reporting."

◆ The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare's position

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which is in charge of the adoption system, responded to our interview as follows.

"Adoption mediation is the act of acting as a third party to mediate between parents and children to ensure that the adoption takes place smoothly. It is required to obtain a license from the prefectural government if it is to be performed repeatedly and continuously as a 'business' for a certain purpose, regardless of whether or not it involves remuneration."

◆ Can we save the second generation who can't say "help"?

Youjiyo, who was adopted by another believer family from her own parents, complains that she does not want the adoption process, in which the doctrines of the cult take precedence over the happiness of the child, to continue any longer.

Youjiyo-san:.

"I think the adoption system itself is really a wonderful system. However, I think it is wrong to use the adoption system only to achieve religious teachings, and it is quite contrary to the principles of the adoption system, so I hope that these misfortunes will end with our second generation."

While Youjiyo has faint hopes for the "relief for victims" of the Unification Church, which is currently under discussion, she is watching the bill's debate, wondering if there might be some difficulties for the "second generation of religion" as well.

Youjiyo:.

"I think there are a lot of 2nd generations who can't rely on others. I think most of them can't ask for help when they are in trouble. It would be ideal if we could create an environment and a world that would not let that happen. I wonder when such a place will actually become available.... To be honest, I don't know right now. I really think that it will be more difficult than we think to provide concrete relief for the second generation.  

◆ Afterword from Report Team

The adoption system is a necessary system for the welfare of children. Some people in the Unification Church say they are leading happy lives as a result of their adoptions. This issue may not fall under the provisions for damage in the bill now being debated in the Diet, but I believe that a survey of the actual situation is required first.

When Youjiyo responded to our interview, I was impressed by the way she said, "I want to prevent others from feeling the same way by sharing my own experience". She also said, "Even though I left the Unification Church more than ten years ago, I might have spent my whole life as if the tag of the Unification Church had always been attached to me and stuck with me."

Like Youjiyo, I believe that there are still many "buried victims" out there.