Bulgaria: Baby Trafficking
The town of Peshtera lies nestled in heavily wooded hills some 80 kilometres from the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. Mid-morning there is little sign of the nearly 30,000 people who live here. On the outskirts of the town is a separate area where the Roma or gypsy community lives. Recently constructed bare concrete brick houses are juxtaposed with wood and stone shacks. Relative wealth sits uneasily with dire poverty.
We have come to Peshtera to investigate a new economic activity. Some years ago it emerged that babies born to women from this village were being sold to couples in France. This new form of trafficking came to light when one woman, apparently regretting her decision to sell her baby, went to the authorities and told them what was going on. Further investigation revealed an intricate trail of deception, greed and desperation.
In the Roma community it is common for women to have children at an early age. Large families are common and single mothers can find it hard to cope. Some members of the community have managed to find work within the wider Bulgarian job market, but lack of education and discrimination means many survive on social welfare. Total income for single mothers is €50 a month for their children.
Some local people have learned to take advantage of desperation. They approach the woman under the guise of wanting to help out, offering her a few euro to pay for food or clothes for her children. This might continue for some time until she has accumulated a debt. She will then be asked to repay this and it will be suggested that a way of paying what she owes and make some more money is to sell one of her babies.
In many cases the woman is still pregnant when this offer is made. If she agrees arrangements are made to transport her to the buyer's country. Markets for Bulgarian babies have been located in France, Greece, Italy and England. The pregnant woman travels abroad and waits until her baby is born. During this time she stays in a safe house - often in a Roma camp. But food and lodgings cost money and in Greece there have been cases where women were induced early by a doctor in order cut costs.
The babies are sold on the black market but they still need documentation. Various strategies and ruses are employed in order to ensure the adoptive couple have the 'right' to adopt the child. The mother claims the adoptive father is the biological father and 'agrees' to allow him to adopt the child. In order to support this fiction the man, in the months leading up to the birth, will travel to Bulgaria and have his passport stamped. This way he creates the impression that he has been having a relationship with the mother for some time.
Ludmila's daughter Slavca was already five months old when she was sold to a French family. She was offered €3,000 but the 23-year-old held out for €4,000. That's an above average price on account of Ludmila's good looks and pale skin, which would help her daughter blend into a Western European family. Ludmila is a single mother with three other children, from eight months to seven years.
"You see your babies crying every day because of hunger and you cannot afford to buy a bottle of milk for them," says Ludmila. "I get €50 a month for my children. It's just not enough. The children are sick sometimes and there is no help at all. If my mother and father were still alive I would have some help but I am alone - I have no choice."
The going rate on the market is anywhere from €5,000 for a girl up to €20,000 for a boy. The mother is usually promised a third of that price, with the rest divided between the traffickers, doctors, lawyers, border officials and all the other parts of this elaborate chain. Women are nearly always cheated of what they were promised - their reduced payment blamed on the cost of travel or false documents. They might receive as little as a few hundred euro for their baby.
Police find it very difficult to break up the criminal gangs involved in this baby trade. Women are complicit in the sale of their children even if they are acting out of economic hardship. They also have a legal right to travel. The 33 people charged by Bulgaria for baby trafficking in the last three years can only hint at the extent of this secret trade.
Most of the prosecutions have originated in the country of destination. Police there contact the Bulgarian authorities and between them they start to recreate the chain. "These cases are transnational so you have to work in co-operation with other services," says Joro Stoitsev, Chief of Police for the Peshtera district. "There are no secrets between us and foreign police forces. We learn from each other. Foreign authorities learn a lot about the problems we face here in Bulgaria and we are learning about European legislation."
Stoitsev and his colleagues are being helped by new legislation similar to that employed by the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau. The proceeds of crime can now be confiscated. A central organised crime unit has been set up and is having success.
Many of the trafficking gangs have been broken up but as long as poverty remains within the Roma community, selling one child to make life better for the others will remain a desperate option.
Anne-Marie Green, July 2006