BTS Army celebrate group's return from military service by helping Korean adoptees
K-pop megaband BTS are back from military service, and their international fandom – known for its progressive activism – is celebrating by rallying behind a cause: adoptees from South Korea.
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Now Asia's fourth-largest economy and a global cultural powerhouse, the idols' native South Korea remains one of the biggest exporters of adopted babies in the world, having sent more than 140,000 children overseas between 1955 and 1999.
The country only recently acknowledged, after years of activism by adult adoptees, that the government was responsible for abuse in some such adoptions of local children, including record fabrication and inadequate consent from birth parents.
BTS's fandom, dubbed Army, is known for backing causes like Black Lives Matter and ARMY4Palestine, and launched the #ReuniteWithBTS fundraising project last week to support Korean adoptees seeking to reconnect with or learn about their birth families, which can be a painful and legally tricky process.
Jungkook (left) and Jimin of BTS salute for the media and fans shortly after their release from 18 months of South Korean military service. Photo: AFP
Almost all the
BTS members have completed
their mandatory military service , required of all men due to the country's military tensions with North Korea.
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