Italy Rushes in Law to Ban 'Spare Part' Baby Sales
by Bruce Johnston in Rome
Originally published by The Telegraph, May 18, 2003
Italy's government has vowed to push through legislation to stop the sale of human organs after a female gang auctioned off a newborn child near the southern port of Bari, possibly so that its organs could be used for transplants.
The three-strong gang of Ukrainians, including the baby's mother, sold the boy for 350,000 euros (£250,000) while he was still in the womb, not realising that the successful bidders were undercover carabinieri police officers.
The police are now investigating several Italians for expressing an interest in buying the child for its organs. "The terrible case of Bari confirms the urgency. A bill is before the justice committee of the lower house which explicitly envisages cases not only of sexual exploitation but also the removal of organs," said Stefania Prestagiacomo, minister for equal opportunities.
Doctors at Rome's Babbino Gesu paediatric hospital said that both the heart and liver of a newborn baby would be suitable for transplant, although the heart would only help another infant.
Last week Pier Luigi Vigna, the head of Italy's anti-Mafia commission, said that there was "more than just a suspicion" that the group was attempting to traffic human organs.
Last January the gang offered the unborn baby to startled officers posing as drug runners. "There's a five-month parcel waiting for you if you're interested," they announced.
The bidding began at 50,000 euros (£35,000) but the price swiftly started to rise as investigators struggled to keep pace with rival bidders. Their overriding interest, they said last week, was to secure the "purchase" and save the baby's life.
On the evening of May 9, the "parcel" was born in a flat in Giovinazzo, near Bari, and given to the carabinieri for cash after they outbid rivals, an unnamed Italian couple.
Last week the three gang members, and their male bodyguard-cum-driver, were arrested and charged with attempted enslavement. The child's mother, a 28-year-old prostitute, is being held in prison along with Olena Kaurova, 62, and Nadia Tkachenko, 46, the suspected gang ringleader. Their bodyguard, Mykhaylo Mamot, 30, was also held for illegal possession of arms.
Investigators believe that the traffickers might have sold other children for illegal adoption whenever one of the prostitutes they controlled became pregnant.
Police suspicions were raised by the expert delivery and "surgical precision" with which Kaurova cut the umbilical cord in the kitchen of the flat, which led them to believe that the gang had previously performed the same tasks on other babies.
