Over the past 15 years, the sale of babies in Bulgaria’s poor Roma communities has become almost commonplace. With help from traffickers, destitute parents are selling their newborns in neighboring Greece, where adoption laws are lax.
Grinding poverty among this often oppressed minority fuels the trend and the “explanations” given by the bereft mothers fool few.
“Iliyana left for Greece pregnant. She came back a week ago, without the belly and without the baby, saying that it died at birth in Greece,” said a woman in the run-down southeastern village of Ekzarh Antimovo.
“It is the third baby that she has sold,” she said, with a knowing glance.
The village is not far from the city of Burgas in the province of the same name, where the trade started in Roma ghettos at the turn of the century. It has spread to other regions, including the eastern cities of Varna, Aytos and Karnobat, Sliven to the southeast and Kazanlak in central Bulgaria.
Last year alone, Burgas prosecutors probed 27 cases of trafficking of 31 pregnant women to Greece and the sale of 33 babies.
Another mother from the same village is facing charges for selling a baby boy in Greece.
“I am not who you are looking for,” the plump young woman said after a reporter knocked on her door.
With its new window panes, her whitewashed house looks decent compared with the neighboring wooden shacks, where large families are often forced to sleep on the ground.
“Ninety-seven percent of the locals are illiterate,” said Sashko Ivanov, the Roma mayor of the village of Ekzarh Antimovo.
The sale of babies remains “an isolated phenomenon that occurs among the most marginalized,” he said. “Babies were and will be sold because the misery is profound.”
Authorities acknowledge they are fighting an uphill battle.
“The cases are very hard to prove. The mothers, whom we consider to be victims, do not cooperate to testify against their traffickers. Often they are the ones who seek help to sell a baby,” Burgas prosecutor Ivan Kirkov said.
The women are paid between 3,500 and 7,000 leva (US$2,000 and US$4,000) per baby — a tiny fraction of the smugglers’ cut, but huge compared with the average Bulgarian monthly salary of US$445.
Greece’s legal system exacerbates the problem: For an adoption to take place, a mother simply needs to declare in the presence of a notary that she is willing to give her baby to a certain family. However, taking money is illegal.
Many investigations end in suspended sentences for the traffickers as most have a clean criminal record, Kirkov said.
Under Bulgarian law, the mothers can only be charged if they acted alone, which is rare, he added.
In total, 16 people were sentenced for baby trafficking in Burgas over the past five years. A recent TV interview with a Roma man from Burgas involved in a trafficking ring shed new light on the illegal practice.
“Three or four traffickers hold the whole Greek market, selling five to six babies per month,” Plamen Dimitrov told Nova television.
One trafficker’s wife, “Elena from Kazanlak, holds the record by giving away eight babies, a real factory,” he added.
Large flashy homes line a street in the Roma neighborhood of Kameno Town, a short drive from Burgas City.
They belong to smugglers who “supply women to Crete,” a local policeman said.
“Their money also comes from other illegal activities such as trafficking in migrants,” he said on condition of anonymity.
Official figures confirm that human smuggling is big business in Bulgaria, frequently criticized by the EU for its weak judiciary and widespread corruption.
“Bulgaria remains one of the primary source countries of human trafficking in the EU,” the US Department of State said in last year’s Trafficking in Persons report.
In the face of the failing justice system, Kameno kindergarten headmistress Maria Ivanova has launched a grassroots initiative with the Ravnovesie NGO against the baby trade.
Ivanova teaches kids in local nurseries and schools that “the sale of a brother or sister is not normal.”
Her initial attempt to discuss the issue with the mothers was met by “outright hostility,” she said.
So instead, Ivanova focuses directly on young Roma pupils, many of whom now carry bracelets, purses and stickers with five simple words: “I am not for sale.”
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese