Baby Girl For Sale – €3000
- September 21st, 2007
- Posted by Imogen Brennan
Newspaper advertisements selling new-born babies for €3000 (A$4888; dcerates.com, 21.9.07) confirmed for a human rights gathering this week in Paris that illegal adoptions had become a crisis issue for Europe.
A conference of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) (20.9.07) was told of increased underworld baby theft, especially in Eastern European states.
“New-born babies are disappearing in mysterious circumstances every day,” a Council agency said in supporting documents.
“Among the examples we know about is the case of several babies just a few hours old stolen from their mothers at a clinic in Kharkov, Ukraine.
“The babies were declared by medical staff to have been born prematurely or to have died as a result of complications, and their parents were never allowed to see the babies’ bodies.
“Other cases have also been reported in Moldova.
“Newspaper advertisements target any unmarried mothers who might be willing to sell their child for €3000.
“Theses babies, too, are victims of trafficking and illegal international adoption.”
Corruption is a key issue in this criminal business, with doctors and lawyers co-opted into organised crime to mask the sale of new-born children, mostly for Western markets.
Mothers going into hospital to give birth may be told their baby has died, in truth stolen.
Preventive action is extremely difficult, despite predictable outraged responses; like that of Britain’s Daily Mail, in December, averring that babies on order, to be sold illegally, may now be delivered by trained midwifes, in “baby factories” – rooms in brothels or dodgy hotels rented by criminal gangs.
Tales associated with the trade, often enough credited by reputable agencies, will have members of a “mafia” gang select a prospective birth mother to be made pregnant by one of their own — and so fill an order from somebody feeling desperate to be a parent.
Reference:
Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, (Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee); “Disappearance of New-born babies for Illegal Adoption in Europe, Doc. 11100rev, 10.1.07. http://assembly.coe.int/main.asp?Link=/documents/workingdocs/doc06/edoc11100.htm, (20.9.07)
Natalie Clark, “The shocking truth about the baby factories”, The Daily Mail, London, 22.12.06.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=424450&in_page_id=1879 (20.9.07)