Malaysia: Babies For Sale | 101 East

babies for sale this lucrative illegal trade is openly advertised on Malaysian social media potential buyers can pick from a catalogue of pregnant women customizing a child by gender color and race it's driven by a web of agents doctors and corruption I'm Steve Chang on this episode of 101 es we go undercover in Malaysia to expose its shadowy baby selling industry we've got whichever's phone terrace house and pajamas for hearty knees I know Dean adopted her daughter Zara when she was just three months old but it wasn't a normal adoption this is for assuming he's inside already adoption in Malaysia has a dark side one that her teenie knows all too well as a child rights activist she's familiar with how traffickers sell babies for illegal adoptions in the region it's a huge problem baby selling in Malaysia it happens within the country babies are exported to see my boy etc and babies are brought in from town and Roger but eight years ago her Tina found herself caught up in the illegal baby trade traffickers had called her after they failed to sell a baby I have a reputation for pinna all these babies and so they told me about this baby who was inclined that needed a good home Tartini agreed to meet them thinking she was just going to pick up another unwanted baby whom she would send to a shelter city me went into the car with two complete strangers and went to see this Vikki thinking that I was just gonna pick her up listen no no no no this is how much this is how much t money or whatever you need to pay and then I was like oh my god and I knew martini realized she was in a car with two traffickers who wanted to sell her the baby the tense one hour drive from Kuala Lumpur took her to the town of Plainville martini arrived at a house where she met another woman and the baby girl who was for sale the woman said a Malaysian family had agreed to buy the child for five thousand US dollars but changed their mind when they saw her they said her skin was too tired unable to find other buyers she offered her teeny the baby for $3,000 she said if you don't take her I'm gonna take her to fill up the time and we wait to send it to China so I actually said excuse me stepped outside called a friend of mine from another NGO and go what's below Curtin and what is Thailand what do they mean by Buddhahood um in Thailand she said oh my god get her out and I said why and I said because she's going she's targeted thought begging in Thailand so they were most probably gonna maim her go get her out now it's like okay whatever you need to pay get her out martini felt she had no choice and made a decision that would change in life forever she agreed to buy the baby on her return to kuala lumpur martini made a report to the police and the government's social welfare department I told the police and I told well Phoenix it and I SiC them on them and they went in and they did the Raiden and you explained why you had to do and I said you're not taking this baby the traffickers escaped arrest meanwhile martini was able to adopt Zahra but the legal adoption process has been long expensive and emotionally draining after eight years she finally became Zara's legal parent but Zahra is still not considered a Malaysian citizen we've been running around in circles for three years it took me five years to get her birth certificate it takes me another three s put in you know application for citizenship and I'm still waiting for now Zara has no access to public education and health care and there are more worrying implications in the future if nothing changes she's not we're going to be able to get a passport she's not be able to get married she found open a bank account she basically has no status with a complex legal adoption process and the difficulties obtaining citizenship many childless couples look for other ways to start a family traffickers are ready to offer one and now they hide behind the veil of the internet to advertise babies for sale they're getting more sophisticated definitely you can do it online you can choose your baby online in a lot of the cataloging for baby selling you'll have Chinese Malay you have Chilean children and beautiful so they're right right up there with the Chinese babies so that's how it goes it's completely you know it's like it's like a supermarket a simple search takes us to some of the websites and social media pages it's easy to pose as someone who wants to adopt and join the groups a wealth of information waits some give advice on adoption others offer avenues for mothers with unwanted pregnancies to give up their babies no questions asked popular posts describe the baby's due date expected medical costs and the payment which is called a consolation fee a baby's price is determined by gender color and race so the lighter skin if a male higher price the darker skin the lower price and in a viewer mix higher price we focus on one Facebook user who we suspect is a baby seller she's been seeking adoptive parents for babies from different women she calls herself Banda which is Malay for mother over several text messages we arranged a meeting with her she sends us her bank details and asks for a booking fee if we wish to register our interest posing as potential buyers our undercover team wearing hidden cameras meets Banda in a town on the west coast of Malaysia as a precaution I monitor the conversation from a distance and soon detect red flags for cross-border trafficking Banda says she only offers pregnant women from Indonesia because sometimes change their minds Banda says it costs up to two thousand five hundred dollars to buy a baby complete with falsified birth documents it doesn't seem like big money for the baby seller until she drops a bombshell did you pull a fan did you put a lock on IBM you did you pull up time by your mom so she claims to be housing dozens of pregnant women in a few shelters we're trying to find out exactly where but she refuses to say anything so let's see how much more we can push her but Bandhu doesn't buckle instead she tries to seal the deal for a pregnant woman about to deliver with a lower fee of $1,500 we ask for more time to consider our options three weeks later we returned with food supplies for the pregnant women banda still refuses to let us visit the shelters but she brings for pregnant women to meet us at her house two of them look like teenagers honda answers most of our questions for them we also find out how she makes the illegal adoptions look legal with a payment to the police a few days later Vonda sends a photo catalog of more pregnant women for us to pick from with the names jobs and stages of pregnancy she wants money to provide further information and to help the women she says we decided to risky to continue and cut her loose banda is not the only one housing pregnant women and selling their babies Malaysian authorities have busted several unlicensed shelters in recent years they provide refuge for women fearful of a stigma they face for getting pregnant out of wedlock these women have either run away from home or been kicked out by their families they stay out of the public eye often coming out only at night living secret lives until their babies are born it's impossible to know how many babies end up being sold but finding one to buy is as simple as scrolling through some adoption websites posing as an interested couple we contact someone who is offering a baby the next step of our investigation shows just how easy it is to buy one directly from a mother thanks to the internet wearing hidden cameras we meet a group of young Filipino women they say they're all working in Malaysia and share a flat together one of them is pregnant we'll call her Jane she's keen to give up her baby for a fee decision we we just really want to find out more about you this jane says she was employed as a maid but her work visa has expired by law migrant workers are not allowed to bear children in Malaysia if she gives birth here Jane's baby will be stateless Jane shows us a recent ultrasound scan it's a boy the women proposed a fee that adds up to $2,000 we would have to pay extra for Jane's monthly checkups and the delivery cost we joined them at Jane's next prenatal checkup having a showed us of the baby's health the women explained the next step getting falsified birth documents as her tini found out when she bought Zara the child will have no legal status without the right paperwork they say we have to get a doctor to change the mother's name on the prenatal medical records replacing Jane's name with our own after the birth the fake documents are submitted to the government registry which issues the birth certificate with our names as the real parents this way no one would ever know the baby isn't ours probing deeper into the illicit network we are introduced to a man who can do more than falsify birth documents dr. Pena says he can also help us find a baby to buy by connecting us with pregnant Malaysians and foreigners who want to sell their babies we tell him with like a Chinese baby the Italian for 30 years should be gay but it that excludes the fees for his services I think the place everything we continue a chat in the privacy of a clinic nearby where he works he says Chinese babies are harder to come by options he tells us the money trail goes to high places right up to the government's National Registration Department known as jpn which is used birth certificates the safety of us once I said to him you're already here okay that's all quiet and just like that we are on track to buy a baby we can pass off as our own we contact dr. Pena and Banda again to give them a chance to respond to the evidence we've gathered when we identify ourselves as journalists they both deny their involvement in any wrongdoing and declined to speak with us further we uncover more links between the medical sector and the authorities when we investigate a medical chain gamma medic its website says it has five clinics serving more than a hundred companies we learned that it is a family business the group chairman has the honorific title of dato sri the highest recognition for those who have contributed to the state the managing director is his wife and the director his son we send an undercover team posing as a couple who wants to buy a baby to one of their clinics run by his daughter-in-law also a doctor bc refers to birth certificate the husband the director of the Medical Group they show us the papers to be submitted to the national birth registry jpn edge once at a jpn brunch she says that context inside will take over so we will tell you the take the time and which they pian to go through so that the falsified documents are submitted with a batch of genuine ones we have average delivery of 30 degrees so we just got you in one of those VHS is just a detection so these astounding admissions of long-term corruption were captured by hidden cameras I'm chant outro from al-jazeera so we return for an official response from the owners of the medical group we have gathered evidence suggesting that gamma medical is involved with helping childless couples with illegal adoptions and falsifying birth certificates would you like to respond to that we could arrange another time yeah but they reject further attempts to arrange an interview it's actually better if you could just give us a response we also approached the National Registration Department about the alleged corruption among its officers but they refused to respond they say the lack of law enforcement has created an even more sinister side to the illicit trade with decades of experience in rescuing trafficked women and children a Joe Fernandez has seen the worst in baby selling we when were being brought in for the purpose of a job but they were then kept locked up confined then subsequently raped and then the babies were being sold a joe says Malaysia's underground sex trade has been cashing in on the baby selling business we were also dealing with sex workers and they were of course clinics that were identified that where these women were taken to to deliver the babies and to have their falsified but certificates done and all counselors for sex workers tell us the women used to avoid getting pregnant but that has changed they become pregnant no abortions she delivers the baby and the baby will be sold so now you have a trafficker who make triple the amount of money over several weeks of investigating a notorious red-light district where sex indicates trafficked women from the region we get to know one of the pimps who tells us we can buy a baby for $7,500 his nights are busy so we arranged to meet in the data at a hotel nearby we are concealing his identity to protect our sources who led us to him he gets down to business offering a range of women it's clear anything is possible with money he says his network of pimps would deliver what I want within a week he calls to confirm pregnant sex workers are available for me to buy a baby from a sex worker to impregnate you get a sense that some of these people do believe that they're helping out childless couples or women with unwanted pregnancies for the right fee but across this whole chain the focus is always on the price the process and protection from the law there are no proper checks whatsoever on the backgrounds of the adoptive families and just whether they make good parents so what that means is it completely overlooks the best interest of the child if they're lucky the children end up in good homes but those who don't may be groomed for pedophiles or exploited by begging syndicates this may be support by City Cates this children when they come to the age of eight are then used for sex peripherals for me the anger is on our own relations our own state our own authorities because of that I don't care attitude what happens to a young child was begging in the streets a child who is being sold you don't care because you don't want to see it on here and it is better for the traffickers eight years ago child activist heartiness I Newland couldn't turn a blind eye when traffickers threatened to send baby Zahra to a bagging syndicate Zahra might have suffered a grim fate if her tini hadn't made the tough call to buy her from the traffickers it's a decision she still grapples with and one she wishes was never possible baby selling has an element of exploitation because the child has no voice and therefore it should be considered trafficking the voice of the child is not hurt the baby never got a chance to say I don't want to go I want to go nobody asked the baby the baby is a baby right you'll say well I'll make the decision for you you don't have that right but until legal adoption in malaysia becomes more accessible and until the laws against selling babies are enforced childless couples will continue to buy infants and traffickers will continue to profit by exploiting vulnerable women and children

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 1,983,387

Keywords: documentary, full documentary, babies, Asia-Pacific, Malaysia, Al Jazeera English, al Jazeera, jazeera, 101 East, asia, infants, child rights, adoption, illegal adoption, corruption, aljazeera, aljazeera english, Babies For Sale, kids for sale, child trafficking, Human rights watch, UNHCR

Id: otvWPV_7cK0

Length: 25min 50sec (1550 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 24 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Now I remember why I dislike watching these. I died a little inside knowing these people exist. And we're not even talking about kids who are abducted outside schools and their fates yet.

Meanwhile, we have people who tried to ally themselves with a former dictator to topple the current dictator, while some other party tried to implement harsher punishments but no one is willing to entertain this problem, even when Al-Jazeera had to do the work for them.

This is a security issue. Our children are being abducted and sold as slaves and hookers, if not worse. Instead of a head of a political movement maybe get these people under SOSMA instead.