Ukraine urged to investigate baby trafficking
A European organisation has urged the Ukraine to investigate the reported disappearance of at least four newborns from a hospital in the eastern part of the country, saying the evidence of baby trafficking was "shameful".
According to the reports, the babies were allegedly stolen to be sold for adoption or to be harvested for organs. The parents were told they were dead, and their requests to see the bodies were denied.
“Before I was not sure that these babies disappeared. Now I am,” Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, from the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, said yesterday. “This is shameful.”
Her four-day investigative mission to this ex-Soviet republic, which ended on Thursday, was prompted by media reports that newborn babies had disappeared from hospital No. 6 in the eastern city of Kharkiv.
Ukrainian activists say the number of newborns who disappeared from the city between 2001 and 2003 could be in the hundreds, and there are fears that the problem extends beyond Kharkiv.
Ukrainians are often targeted by human traffickers because of their poverty and the country’s location at the crossroads of Europe.
