Pippa McPherson came to Australia as a four-month-old in 1986, to live with her adopted family in Melbourne.
She's still never spoken to her birth family in South Korea and believes the adoption paperwork she has is false, so she's never been sure of where she really came from, or if she has siblings.
McPherson loves her "fantastic" adoptive family and wouldn't change a thing about her upbringing, but like many other adoptees, she has always grappled with her identity and where she fits in.
"As adoptees all of our lives, we've grown up not knowing our identity. It wasn't until I started connecting with other adoptees that I realised that all these experiences I had as a teenager — of not knowing where I belonged or if I fit in with the Asian group or the white kids — were experiences that all adoptees had," she said.
"As a girl, you want to do your makeup and you want to do your hair, but you've got different facial features so your friends are trying to give you tips and you're looking at it going, none of this is working."
She says she was embarrassed about liking things from Asian cultures, like Japanese anime, and didn't have the opportunity to learn about Korean culture.
"You're adopted into a white family, you're thrown into white society, and you don't know anything about where you came from or your culture, so you sort of feel like a bit of an imposter," she said.
"The concept of post-adoption trauma has really resonated with me over the last five years and it's made me understand why I've become the person I am today."
McPherson said she was told by Australian government departments that they'd never open up her adoption paperwork and she'd never be able to meet with her birth family, and had come to terms with that.
When she gave birth to her son seven years ago she started rethinking the concept of family and during the COVID-19 pandemic decided to look into hers.
"I was looking at my child thinking: 'This is the only blood relative I have.' He's got my features and I wanted to know whose features I have. Do I take after my mum? Do I take after my dad?"
She says her search for her family raised many questions and argues that the Australian government was complicit in signing off paperwork that may have been false.
"I've got signed affidavits from the social worker that went to the county court for my adoption papers saying that there are no records for my birth parents," she said.
"But then if you turn the next page, there's another signed affidavit with my initial social history with my birth parents' names and ages and where they're from. So that's not right and to me they haven't read the paperwork and checked it."
McPherson is calling for an inquiry into inter-country adoption in Australia and an apology to people who have suffered adoption-related trauma.
Around 3,600 people were adopted from South Korea by Australians following the Korean War in the 1950s, all facilitated by Australia's partner agency, the Korean-based Eastern Social Welfare Society (ESWS).
McPherson says she has documents showing her parents were pressed to pay a "donation" to ESWS that the agency then denied.
She says she was treated as "a commodity" by the agency and argues Australia must have known about fraudulent practices.
ESWS has been contacted for comment.
McPherson says she feels "extremely validated" by a landmark South Korean inquiry this week that found human rights abuses were committed across the country's post-war inter-country adoption program between the 1960s and 1990s.
The report found that fraud, profit-seeking, falsified documents, and inadequate consent were rife in the scheme that sent 170,000 children around the world for adoption, as part of a "mass export of children".
Park Sun-young, the chairperson of the independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission, told a press briefingthat the findings shed light on "a shameful part of our history".
"While many adoptees were fortunate to grow up in loving families, others suffered great hardship and trauma due to flawed adoption processes. Even today, many continue to face challenges."
Since the inquiry began in 2022, some 367 adoptees — all of whom were sent overseas between 1964 and 1999 — filed petitions alleging fraudulent practices in their adoption process.
The commission also said the South Korean government failed to regulate adoption fees, allowing agencies to settle them through "internal agreements", effectively turning it into a profit-driven industry.
The Australian Department of Social Services says it will consider the inquiry's final report, which is expected in May.
A spokesperson told SBS News the department "has had no visibility" of allegations Australian social workers did not do proper checks on adoption paperwork.
"The intercountry adoption process in Australia is strictly controlled and managed by government departments in accordance with the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (Hague Convention).
"Australia’s intercountry adoption partnerships are exclusively with countries that demonstrate compliance with the standards and principles of the Hague Convention," the spokesperson said.
Shaun Kwak says a lot of adoptees are struggling with news that South Korean adoption papers may have been falsified. Source: Supplied
He says the inquiry represents the first real acknowledgement from Korea of wrongdoing to adoptees.
"What this investigation's suggesting is that they've found some systemic consistencies that certain things were fabricated in order to meet receiving countries' requirements to help facilitate the adoption process," he said.
"We were an in-demand product that Korea tried to facilitate more of."
Kwak says the findings have been tough for him to process, because he has fears that the adoption paperwork outlining his own history may be false.
"They are strong allegations being made and it's shaken me to be honest," he said.
"If you think about the fundamentals of family and origins, most people never have to think about: 'is my birthday, my actual birthday?' Or 'is the name of what it says my birth mother's name is? Is that real? Is it false?'
"And for most of us who haven't reunited with birth family, this piece of paper, this adoption file is the only thing we have to base our origins on. The concern is that this document that we've been looking at for decades of our life might've been falsified and we don't know."
Kwak says he would like to see greater support offered to Korean adoptees to find out the truth of their origins, and also support for birth mothers who may have been exploited.
He encourages other adoptees to seek peer-to-peer support groups, such as online adoptee support groups and social media groups.
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