Child protection organizations like Cafcass, ADCS as well as Children and Families Across Borders sent out a warning to social service workers in the United Kingdom to watch out for what these child protection organizations are calling "miracle babies" coming into the UK from Africa. These so called "miracle babies" are in reality no miracle but rather a form of human trafficking, a modern form of slavery that is so prevalent in this current century. These "miracle babies" are a result from staged fake births and scams that fake fertility doctors use to sell babies to desperate couples. A main part of the scam is religion and faith because these "fertility clinics" use the idea of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus as a virgin, to explain how the pregnancy occurred.
Perhaps the most horrific thing one can see from reading this article is that there are people in the world who are now selling babies. The numbers of women and children being sold into human trafficking are extremely high as well as the number of men and yet, in order to make more money offenders are now selling babies. Not only are they selling babies, but they are taking advantage of desperate couples who want a child by having them believe that after all their hard work and money, the child that the mother has given birth to is their child when in reality, it is most likely the baby of a poor mother who had no choice but to give the child up. It is very likely that the birth mothers of these "miracle babies" are women who have been sold into the sex trade and work in brothels and are forced to give their children up. Due to this, there is a high chance that the baby might have diseases like HIV/AIDS because the majority of the women in the brothels carry the disease. I agree with the article that although "'there are many victims, the real victims are of course the children'". If the parents never find out that the birth was staged, then they would continue to believe that the child is theirs and raise the child as so. This would mean that the child's life would be a lie. He would never know where he is from or who he really is. The child would live a life based on a lie and neither the child nor the parents would be aware of this tragedy.
After reading this article it would be strange if one did not wonder how it is possible for people to commit much a horrendous scam and yet, one would also know that sadly it is possible because human trafficking is still going on to this day. This article as well as anything relating to human trafficking goes along very well with a documentary called The Day My God Died. This documentary addresses the horrors of human trafficking as well as the life of the victims who are involved. There is a part in the documentary where the police is questioning a trafficker what he would do if he found out that his daughter had been trafficked into he sex trade. The man answered that he would kill those who are responsible. The officer asked then why he traffics other people's daughters. This question left the offender speechless. This causes one to wonder if the people who are a part of these appalling scams realize that these babies are someone's sons and daughters. If the people who are involved in the "miracle baby" scam were asked the same question that the trafficker was asked, they would have the similar answer and yet they would most likely still continue to commit their crime. The reason why these "fertility clinics" would continue their "work" is because of money. Desperate couples probably spend thousands for the fake fertility process. There is a huge profit margin since the babies that these offenders are giving to the couples are probably coerced from the mothers or bought for a very low amount while in return of getting a couple "pregnant", they receive thousands. It is horrific yet not very surprising that these people are selling babies through fake fertility clinics because unlike normal human trafficking, trafficking of babies for the purpose of hoodwinking innocent couples makes more money. This is because like stated above, the couples are willing to give thousands to have a child while in the normal human trafficking setting, the profits are not as high since it would take more time to make the thousands that these clinics are making in a short time.
Money is what causes scams like this to surface. The constant question of "how can I make more money" leads to the creation of these horrible scams. Thankfully the child protection organizations realized that this scam is going on and yet, it is likely that this scam has been going on for a long time and there are probably numerous couples who believe that their "miracle baby" is really theirs. Also, it cannot possibly be easy to track down all the couples that come into the UK with babies and conduct a DNA test. Thirdly, if this scam is occurring in relation to the United Kingdom, it causes one to wonder what other countries are being scammed as well and are unaware. The reality of these scams must be spread to all the countries and the child protection services of each country must be notified and all efforts must be made to stop this abominable crime from causing more damage than it already has.
Catherine Choi
10/18/13
12:57pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24564930
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