Post by Bozur on Apr 10, 2005 16:53:23 GMT -5
Price of a newborn baby ranges from 10,000 to 20,000 euros
A 50-day-old baby which two Bulgarians tried to sell to a policewoman posing as a prospective adoptive mother.
Many couples go private to avoid the likelihood of being disappointed by the state services, and there is no dearth of people ready to exploit a couple’s frustrated desire for a child, all to the tune of 10,000 to 20,000 euros.
As a rule, the baby traffickers active in Greece make use of the services of women in Eastern Europe, mainly Bulgaria who, for a price, agree to get pregnant “to order.”
Victims of rape
There are also cases in which women who do not agree are raped and then forced to hand over the child for adoption.
Victims of human traffickers who fall pregnant after being forced into prostitution are also candidates.
In most cases, these women give birth in small clinics spread around different parts of the country and which undertake all the bureaucratic procedures, such as registering the child under another name (falsely declaring a birth to the adoptive mother).
Gangs such as these have been discovered in Ioannina, Thessaloniki, Lamia and recently in Crete.
“There are colleagues who have abused their profession,” said Dr Giorgos Kallipolitis, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Athens University medical school and head of the Alexandra Family Planning Center.
‘Semi-legal’
“But we can’t generalize. These days there are very few of these small clinics where these things occur. The larger maternity hospitals are businesses; they would never risk their reputation by getting involved in such a scandal.”
The management of these hospitals usually keeps a close eye on any unmarried mothers giving birth on their premises, he added.
Then there are the “semi-legal” cases where the prospective adoptive parents are forced to pay the gang, but then the adoption goes forward through the usual legal channels, which involve monitoring by social workers and then a court ruling.
www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=54089
A 50-day-old baby which two Bulgarians tried to sell to a policewoman posing as a prospective adoptive mother.
Many couples go private to avoid the likelihood of being disappointed by the state services, and there is no dearth of people ready to exploit a couple’s frustrated desire for a child, all to the tune of 10,000 to 20,000 euros.
As a rule, the baby traffickers active in Greece make use of the services of women in Eastern Europe, mainly Bulgaria who, for a price, agree to get pregnant “to order.”
Victims of rape
There are also cases in which women who do not agree are raped and then forced to hand over the child for adoption.
Victims of human traffickers who fall pregnant after being forced into prostitution are also candidates.
In most cases, these women give birth in small clinics spread around different parts of the country and which undertake all the bureaucratic procedures, such as registering the child under another name (falsely declaring a birth to the adoptive mother).
Gangs such as these have been discovered in Ioannina, Thessaloniki, Lamia and recently in Crete.
“There are colleagues who have abused their profession,” said Dr Giorgos Kallipolitis, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Athens University medical school and head of the Alexandra Family Planning Center.
‘Semi-legal’
“But we can’t generalize. These days there are very few of these small clinics where these things occur. The larger maternity hospitals are businesses; they would never risk their reputation by getting involved in such a scandal.”
The management of these hospitals usually keeps a close eye on any unmarried mothers giving birth on their premises, he added.
Then there are the “semi-legal” cases where the prospective adoptive parents are forced to pay the gang, but then the adoption goes forward through the usual legal channels, which involve monitoring by social workers and then a court ruling.
www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=54089