(CNN Spanish) – The Argentine justice system is carrying out an investigation in which it is presumed that people and companies incorporated abroad offered a “service” of surrogacy of wombs to couples who could not conceive, at a cost of US$ 50,000 while recruiting women in Argentina to gestate babies, in exchange for a payment of US$10,000, as reported on Friday by the Argentine Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Although surrogacy is not regulated in the country, payment for this activity is prohibited.
In January, federal prosecutor Alejandra Mángano, with the collaboration of the Office of the Prosecutor for Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Protex), began the investigation after a presentation by the head of the Litigation Directorate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship, before the drawing room of the Federal Chamber.
A 58-year-old German woman had presented herself at a hospital in the city of Bonn, in her country of origin, with a three-month-old baby in “terrible health conditions” and born in Argentina, according to the statement from the Public Ministry. Argentine prosecutor. When you requested medical attention, He showed the girl’s birth certificate issued by the Civil Registry of the City of Buenos Aires and an Argentine passport.
According to the presentation, a German official warned that the girl’s health was deteriorating and that the woman who took her to the guard “was not in a position to provide her with the necessary care.” After becoming aware of this case, They notified the local police and provisional custody of the baby was granted to a surrogate family.
It was the Provincial Directorate for Minors of the Federated State of Saarland that notified the Consulate of the Argentine Republic in the city of Bonn to begin the investigation that made it possible to determine that the birth of the minor was registered in the Civil Registry of the City of Buenos Aires. and that the fertilization process was carried out in a private medical institution in the same city.
In this way, it was possible to identify the pregnant woman and dismantle the alleged plot that includes the investigation of 147 files.
“The event for which the case was initiated does not turn out to be isolated; on the contrary, it was revealed that it was a business mechanism, developed at a national and international level, specifically dedicated to carrying out ‘surrogacy’ treatments. “Mángano wrote in his opinion.
The case is being investigated as a crime of trafficking for the possible “illicit business of transnational characteristics dedicated to the exploitation of the bodies of pregnant women.”
Within the framework of this investigation, on Wednesday fertility centers in the City of Buenos Aires and in the province of Santa Fe, notary offices and legal offices were raided.
Prosecutor Mángano told CNN this Monday that at the moment there are no arrests and that, for now, no further details can be specified.
In the opinion requesting the raids, the prosecutor’s office explains that the people being investigated “spread their services through different means of communication abroad, thus making contact with couples who wanted to have children but who could not carry them.” ahead a pregnancy. They offered them a ‘service’ worth approximately US$50,000.” According to the file, this service would include “the selection of the surrogate, the acquisition of the embryos to be implanted, the treatment itself, regular pregnancy check-ups and the subsequent delivery.”
Other details of the investigation were released. As explained by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the recruitment system for pregnant women would consist of contacting women with socioeconomic needs, offering them US$ 10,000 to carry out the pregnancy and adding between US$ 1,000 and 2,000 to the offer in case they The birth was by cesarean section.
After the raids, the justice system found “147 files corresponding to cases of surrogacy carried out between 2018 and April of this year.” According to information from the Prosecutor’s Office in at least 49 files, the characteristics are similar to the case for which the investigation began.
CNN is making efforts to contact the German Embassy in Argentina for details.
The post Argentine justice investigates an alleged paid surrogacy network appeared first on CNN.
