Uma Feed Won the Zola Prize, But Her Fight Isn’t Over

Uma Feed. Photo: Adrian Øhrn Johansen / Klassekampen.

Uma Feed thought she was an orphan—until a DNA test proved otherwise. For years, the artist and activist is fighting to expose the dark realities of inter-country adoption and hold Norway accountable for its role in what she calls a system of human trafficking.

In Norway, inter-country adoption has long been framed as an act of salvation. For decades, it was seen as a win-win solution — families unable to conceive could adopt children from poorer countries, providing them with what was assumed to be a better life. Between the 1970s and early 2000s, thousands of children from South Korea, Ethiopia, and Colombia were adopted by Norwegian parents, with little oversight. In 2024, the Statistisk Sentralbyrå counted 20,300 people living in Norway to be adopted from abroad—approximately 6,500 of them were born in South Korea.

But in recent years, a different reality has emerged. Investigations in several countries, including South Korea and Norway, have uncovered systematic fraud—parents coerced into giving up their children, falsified documents, and babies classified as orphans when they weren’t. Norway has responded by tightening regulations and halting adoptions from several countries, including South Korea, while exploring the possibility of banning inter-country adoption altogether. The scandals and stricter regulations appear to be making an impact: in 2002, a total of 785 adoptees were brought to Norway, whereas in 2023, this number dropped to just 34. Too little, too late, argues Uma Feed, an Oslo-based artist who won the Zola Prize in 2024 for her battle against transnational adoption. According to her, the adoption-cycle continues to be a system built on lies, exploitation, and personal tragedies for adoptees—one that reflects the asymmetric power dynamic between the West and the countries from which children are taken.

In 2023, Uma Feed attended the KADU Forum for Overseas Korean Adoptees in Seoul, together with adoptees from all over the world. Photo: Uma Feed.

South Korea’s Pandora’s box
Uma talks from personal experience. For most of her life, she believed she was an orphan. That was what her adoption papers said. That was what she had been told by her Norwegian adoptive parents. But something never felt right. “As long as I can remember, I had this image that I was never given away. And if I was, it certainly wasn’t by my mother,” she says.

Her intuition was right. In 2023, through a DNA test, Uma found her biological family in South Korea. Her mother had never consented to her adoption—she had been kicked out of her parents’ home after giving birth, ill with tuberculosis, which she had throughout her pregnancy. With no access to medical care or having any social support, she was left vulnerable. Ten days after she was forced to leave, her grandmother died of a heart attack. She was called back for the funeral, but when she returned, the baby—Uma—was gone. Her father claimed to know nothing, saying her mother had ‘fixed’ the problem. Facing immense pressure and cultural stigma, she turned to Uma’s father, who had been living with his parents and their older son. Together, they searched the village, knocking on doors. They never imagined she had been sent out of the country. “They were out there looking for me, searching for a child they might recognise,” says Uma. “I was right. I always knew.”

Uma’s family lantern in a well-known buddhist temple in South Korea. Photo: Uma Feed.

Uma’s case is not unique—over 350 similar stories of adoptees from South Korea have been investigated—but it has become the most high-profile in Norway, forcing a national reckoning, albeit rather slowly. Norwegian authorities had long been aware of fraudulent adoptions from South Korea—cases where children were falsely classified as orphans and sent abroad without parental consent—but continued facilitating these adoptions for years. For Uma, this is not just a bureaucratic failure, but an active human rights violation. “If adoption is legal, it can be called adoption. But if there’s any doubt about legality, then call it what it is: human trafficking.”

Determined to hold those responsible accountable, Uma initially reported the Norwegian state to the Oslo Police District, but the case was dismissed on the grounds that it was outdated. Now, she is preparing to take both Norway and South Korea to the Human Rights Court in The Hague, arguing that human rights violations should not be subject to a statute of limitations. But that’s easier said than done: “The state will always protect the state,” she says. “My case has been ‘forgotten,’ ‘delayed,’ ‘lost in paperwork’ more times than I can count. It’s not incompetence. It’s deliberate.”

Living between two worlds
Beyond the David and Goliath struggle of her lawsuit, Uma also experienced a deep identity crisis upon reuniting with her biological family. From being raised Christian, she was suddenly Buddhist. “They expect me to bow properly and follow the social hierarchies that were completely foreign to me,” she explains. She also faced judgment for her tattoos, which in Korea are associated with criminals. “They were horrified. ‘This goes away, right?’ they asked. And I had to explain, ‘No, they don’t.’” Additionally, she struggled with Korean expectations of women. “I was expected to be much more submissive. The way I spoke, the way I sat, the way I moved. I wasn’t behaving as a ‘proper’ Korean woman should.” At the same time, she never felt fully Norwegian either. “I speak the language and know the customs, but I will never be seen as fully Norwegian. People have always told me I should feel grateful to be here, but how can you be grateful when your life started with a lie?”

More than just cultural differences, the reunion with her biological family confronted her with an existential paradox. “After forty years of not resembling anyone, I could suddenly see my own image reflecting in them. We look so much alike, anybody could pick us out and say, ‘Look, a family.’ But they’re also total strangers to me.” Seeing her brother’s childhood and his Korean life made her think: “That should have been me.” The weight of what was lost hit her hard. “Forty years of being with my family is gone. The deep grief I felt is hard to explain with words, and I guess I’m still in this grieving process, but nobody acknowledges that.”

Her experiences have shaped every aspect of her work, both as an artist and as an activist—though she notes that it’s a label others have given her more than one she has chosen herself. “I don’t just talk about adoption. I use every tool I have—art, performance, storytelling—to expose what’s happening,” she says. Uma’s work spans multiple disciplines: installations, film, theatre, and visual art, all exploring themes of identity, loss, and the hidden consequences of inter-country adoption.

Uma’s first major work on adoption was The Only Story, a film she created in 2018. “At the time, I thought this would be the only time I would touch on adoption in my art. But instead, it turned out to be the first of many,” she says. In Stigespillet presenting The Fighter, one of her ongoing performance art pieces, Uma portrays herself as a fighter in a Kafkaesque game, symbolising the endless bureaucratic maze and the struggle against a system where the rules are fixed against her.

Uma’s “Stigespillet presenting The Fighter” art installation at Bærum Kunsthall. Photo: Uma Feed.

Norway is a ‘good’ country
Despite overwhelming evidence of fraud and human trafficking in adoption, Norway remains reluctant to acknowledge its role. “Norwegians love their self-image as a humanitarian country,” Uma says. “They want to believe they saved us, not that they were complicit in a system that stole us.” Another possible reason for the state’s hesitance is the financial consequences, as discussions about compensating adoptees gain momentum. “They don’t want to believe that a ‘good’ country like Norway could have participated in something like this.”

Uma recalls a moment when a police officer questioned her decision to change her name. “He asked me why I wanted to change it, as if it was a hassle. I told him, ‘If you found out your parents weren’t your real parents and they had lied to you all your life, wouldn’t that shake you to your core?’ And suddenly, he understood.”

The resistance isn’t limited to the Norwegian government—it also comes from fellow mothers at the schoolyard who feign ignorance about her story, as well as from critical voices within the adoptee community itself. “Both adoptive parents and adoptees in high positions have told me to shut up,” she says. “They think if my story comes out, theirs will be questioned too. That their ‘happy adoptee’ narrative will fall apart.” Even though she understands why some people struggle to accept the truth—many genuinely believe adoption saved lives—messages like these make Uma feel incredibly lonely in her fight at times. “It wears me down,” she says. “It eats away at my strength and my soul, but I have to keep going—because of the injustice. It’s not right that someone should get away with human trafficking.” So she picks up the pieces and keeps fighting.

Thankfully, her children remind Uma why she must keep going. “They’ve grown up with this case—it’s been their whole childhood,” she says. “My daughter saw my film when she was seven, and she could repeat my entire story back to me, word for word.” She also receives messages from adoptees and strangers who feel encouraged by her work. “Some tell me, ‘You’re saying what I never dared to say.’ Others just thank me for making them feel seen.”

Winning the Zola Prize in 2024 was a moment of recognition for Uma’s work. “At times, this fight feels bleak, and recognition like this reminds me that people are paying attention,” she says. “But it’s not about me—it’s about proving that what I’m fighting for matters.” While the prize has amplified her voice and gained some media attention, Uma is still the one reaching out to journalists to create relevant follow-up stories on the transnational adoption dossier, not vice versa. 

The battle is far from over
Looking ahead, Uma sees several critical steps that need to be taken. First and foremost, the language around illegal adoptions must change. “The term currently used sounds more like some irregularity, not a crime against humanity. The UN and EU have called for illegal adoption to be called human trafficking, but it’s not in the law yet.” She also stresses the importance of broader solidarity. “Because there aren’t as many of us adoptees out there, we need allies to speak up—from other social justice movements, from the media, from politicians who are willing to stand with us.” She believes that true solidarity means standing up for the rights of others, even when your own are secure. “If you can’t have children, that sucks, but that doesn’t mean you can buy someone else’s,” she says, emphasising that poverty doesn’t justify exploitation. Her message is clear: #ImNotACommodity.

Why illegal adoptions can be human trafficking
Human trafficking is defined by the United Nations as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons through coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, or abuse of power for the purpose of exploitation”. This exploitation includes forced labor, sexual exploitation, slavery, or the removal of organs. Illegal transnational adoptions can fall under human trafficking when children are illicitly obtained through means such as abduction, sale, or fraud, and then transferred across borders for adoption—as was the case with Uma Feed. In recent years, the pressure to explicitly recognise illegal adoptions as human trafficking has grown. The United Nations has called on countries to criminalise illegal adoptions as human trafficking, though it has not yet made it an official part of international law. The European Union is taking legislative steps. In 2024, Brussels strengthened its anti-trafficking laws, explicitly including illegal adoption as a form of exploitation. It’s now up to the member states to implement this in their national laws.

Beyond policy and mentality changes, Uma believes in creating crisis centres and meeting points for adoptees struggling with identity loss, mental health issues, and the trauma of learning their adoptions were fraudulent. “The number of adoptees who take their own lives is heartbreaking.” She hopes to see more long-term support structures, including legal assistance for those fighting to reclaim their identities.

As for her personal journey, Uma remains connected to her biological family, though the relationship is complex. “We’re in touch, but it’s not easy. I’ve lost so much time with them, and there are cultural gaps that can’t be bridged overnight.” While she continues to process her own identity, she knows one thing for certain—her activism isn’t ending anytime soon.

“I think of American civil rights icon Angela Davis, still giving lectures in her 80s about the same injustices she fought her whole life. Maybe that will be me—still talking about adoption, still telling my story, until someone younger takes the torch from me. And I’ll keep going until that day comes.”

Uma’s reading list
Curious about Uma’s biggest sources of inspiration for her activism? She recommends some of her favourite works: