Baby-trafficking horror exposed

By Mark Russell

CHILD-TRAFFICKING gangs were moving pregnant women from country to country, then waiting for them to give birth before selling their babies, Australia's chief federal magistrate said yesterday.

John Pascoe said the infants were being sold mainly for illegal adoption but also for sexual exploitation, slavery and begging.

He said demand for babies who only knew their adoptive parents was high. "More importantly, the children have no official identity or proven nationality and, therefore, an identity can be easily forged to suit the purpose for which they are intended," Mr Pascoe said in Singapore, addressing a conference on the trafficking in unborn children.

"This includes the ability to forge paperwork for adopting parents who could easily be deemed the child's biological parents.

"Alternatively, as the children are born outside of any formal health clinics, there may be no need for any paperwork at all.

"There would be no official documentation to indicate the baby was not the child of the adoptive parents or indeed that it even exists."

Mr Pascoe spoke of a case in November when Malaysian authorities raided two houses in response to a tip-off that they were being used to foster illegal immigrants from Indonesia.

Two women, both in an advanced stage of pregnancy, were arrested.

Also in the house were two babies whose mothers could not be found.

In the second house were found identity certificates, birth certificates, child adoption forms and other documents used to create false identities. Five Indonesian women and two Indonesian men were arrested.

Mr Pascoe said there was a need for tougher laws to fight the scourge.

The magistrate has become an outspoken critic of child trafficking since visiting Thailand, Burma and Laos last year, where he met women who had become victims of the trade. They had contracted HIV and been sent home to die.

"One of the alarming dangers where countries have inconsistent laws, especially between neighbouring countries, is that as unborn children are not recognised as people," he said.

"Traffickers may move an unborn child from a country with strict laws to be exploited in a country with more relaxed laws."

South-East Asian countries that are parties to the Trafficking Protocol, which was adopted by the United Nations and has been in force since 2003, are Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia.

Neighbouring China, Vietnam, and Singapore are not signatories.

"When a country has not signed or ratified the Trafficking Protocol, it may not have laws against trafficking, and, in the event that it does, may not address all situations in which the unborn child can be trafficked," Mr Pascoe said.