'I Just Need Money'; What Drives Mothers to Sell Their Babies?

She was in her forties when she decided to start a new job that would bring a lot of money. She was selling her children. Fortunately, on September 18, 2021, the Secretary General of the Regional Syndicate of Public Security in Mahdia, Samir al-Jabri said that two people were arrested by the agents of the regional division of the Judicial Police and the team specialized in researching crimes of violence against women and children and the Public Road Division in Mahdia. A single mother was about to sell her newborn to an adoptive father. She was playing the role of pregnancy and in the ninth month, she gave the innocent newborn to another family and got money monthly. There were 4 pregnancies, so 4 abandoned innocent babies were victims of a “mother” who is not a real one.

Al-Jabri explained that the circumstances of the case of child trafficking are represented in the fact that an indigenous woman from El Jem gives birth to children outside marriage, then abandons them to families willing to adopt for various amounts of money paid to her monthly, noting that the woman abandoned 4 infants according to preliminary research.

 

Selling Her 4 Children

On September 18, 2021, the police arrested a woman the moment she was about to sell her newborn in a private hospital in Mahdia, Tunisia. According to the Tunisian radio, Diwan FM, “the Secretary General of the Regional Syndicate of Public Security in Mahdia Samir al-Jabri indicated that she and one of the families that she intended to sell him her newborn, defrauded some identities and documents to register the infant in the civil status books in the name of the adoptive father,” indicating that the mother was arrested with the adopted father and two people. They were kept in the case of submission with permission from the Public Prosecution in Mahdia.

“This has been coordinated with the representative of child protection and the infant was held to one of the competent associations in the region.”

What this single mother was doing is really horrifying. According to Tunisian Police investigations, she relied on Vitro Fertilization; taking the future adoptive mother’s egg after being fertilized in vitro by the future father’s sperm, to undergo the embryo culture and be implanted in the single mother uterus with the intention of establishing a successful pregnancy. 

Of course, the infant is the only victim in all this story. The “supposed mother” did not want to give further information, but she insisted that this was not her first time. According to her statements during the police investigation, she said that she “sold” 3 of her children to three different families in private hospitals using the adoptive mother’s identity. She insisted that she really needed money more than anything. 

Not only in Tunisia, selling children or “child trafficking'' in general is a phenomenon that is spread all over the World as many parents or single parents (most of the time) see that this is the easiest way for them to get money, especially in cases of unwanted pregnancy. 

 

Reasons Behind Selling Babies

According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), Albert Thomas, First Director of ILO said that “the exploitation of childhood constitutes the evil, the most hideous, the most unbearable to the human heart.” 

World Vision Website introduces trafficking of children as a form of modern-day slavery. “Children are trafficked for purposes such as domestic labor, armed groups, criminal activity, selling and even adoption. When looking for reasons behind trafficking of children, they will certainly be unacceptable. No single reason can push parents, single parents, people, or anyone in this World to exploit one child even before his birth. However, let us look at things from their perspectives and try to understand how these people can hurt such innocent creatures. It’s hard to understand how it can happen. 

ILO cited several reasons not to justify these crimes but to try to understand the motives in order to find solutions. According to the same site, Humanitarian crises, such as “violent conflicts and natural disasters, sometimes result in children being separated from their families, making them easier targets for traffickers.”

Sometimes, traffickers “prey on parents’ fears, lying to them and giving false promises of a brighter future for their children. “Parents may hand over their children not just for money, but in the misguided hope that their children will escape poverty and have a better life, with more opportunities.”

Nowadays, trafficking has become a lucrative trade. According to the International Labour Organization,” it is the fastest growing and second-largest criminal industry in the world, after drug trafficking. Trafficking in people generates over US$150 billion a year.”

 

‘Stop Trafficking Children’

According to the UNODC’s Global Report on Trafficking in 2020, the percentage of all kinds of violence that children are exposed to is very increased. The 2020 report reveals that in 2018, around “50,000 human trafficking victims were detected and reported by 148 countries: 50 percent of detected victims were trafficked for sexual exploitation, 38 percent were exploited for forced labor.”

Globally, one in every three victims detected is a child and this is very dangerous.

According to the same report “The share of children among detected trafficking victims has tripled, while the share of boys has increased five times over the past 15 years”.”

According to the International Labour Organization, trafficking has become lucrative as it is the fastest growing and second-largest criminal industry in the world, after drug trafficking. “Trafficking in people generates over US$150 billion a year. “

The question now is how to prevent and block this phenomenon, how to protect these innocent creatures? World Vision again works directly with communities to help prevent trafficking and helps them to restore their lives.

Working with children, families, communities, and governments aims to provide safe havens for trafficked children. The most important thing is to reunite trafficked children with their families, so they feel secured and safe. Knowledge is power, the more someone knows, the more equipped that person is. In doing so, the whole World should power children with knowledge and do not forget about parents who are the pillars of child environment. It is important to help them with social training courses in the presence of a specialized educational team to build community awareness.