In this episode of Australia’s ABC Background Briefing, we hear about Anna who was born in 1987 and who grew up believing she was an orphan.

Anna lives in Melbourne, Australia. When she explored her adoption story she found out that her parents were married and she had been given up for adoption because she was a girl.

As part of her investigation of what happened to Anna, reporter Gina McKeon spoke to a social worker whose job in the 80’s it was to assess referrals from the adoption agency in South Korean and allocate them to prospective parents in Melbourne.

McKeon makes the point that by the 1980s in Australia, forced adoptions had ended and there were more opportunities for women to either have terminations or keep their children because of social changes.

Therefore, she says, many prospective parents were looking overseas for children to adopt.