Pregnant woman, Source https://www.flickr.com/photos/aurimas_m/3423098686/, Author Aurimas Mikalauskas of Paliūniškis, Lithuania (CC BY-SA 2.0 Generic)
WARNING: Graphic Images
In a joint operation between the United States and Mexico, authorities last year captured Martha Mendez Aguilar, known as “La Diabla” (“The Devil”), the head of a grisly baby trafficking ring called the Jalisco New Generation Cartel [1A].
“[This is an] example of what terrorist cartels will do to diversify their revenue streams and finance operations [1B].”
–Joe Kent, Dir. of National Counterterrorism Center
Pregnant women, often from impoverished circumstances, were lured to remote locations. Once there, the mothers were murdered, and their organs and infants harvested for sale. The infants were sold to couples for around $14,000 each.
Tragically, this cartel was not the only one to pursue baby trafficking.
Indonesian police uncovered an international baby trafficking ring believed to have sold at least 25 infants to buyers in Singapore since 2023 [2A]. Using Facebook, WhatApp, and other channels, this syndicate targeted expectant mothers who allegedly did not want to raise their infants.
Delivery costs were covered and a small amount of compensation paid to the mothers. Then the infants were handed over.
In some cases, infants were actually reserved in the womb for purchasers and housed for as long as a year after birth, while fraudulent birth certificates, parental consent forms, medical records, and immigration documents were prepared.
Desperate Straits
“These clinics or shelters use language that sounds compassionate at first, such as ‘you can give birth and take your baby home’. But in reality, they offer money and illegally transfer custody of the baby [2B].”
— Ai Rahmayanti, Commissioner of the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI)
Child trafficking cartels are extremely sophisticated, often posing as maternity clinics, orphanages, or shelters which appear to care for vulnerable women and children [2C].
Typically, they target women in desperate straits – those suffering from financial hardship, trapped in debt bondage, abandoned by a spouse or partner, pregnant as the result of sexual violence whether by a partner or stranger, or simply pregnant from a casual sexual relationship [2D].
When manipulation fails, cartels will resort to criminal approaches including direct abduction (whether from hospitals, schools, playgrounds, or other public spaces), and crisis exploitation (natural disasters, civil unrest, or refugee settings) [7A].
Purposes
Infants and children may be trafficked for illegal adoption, prostitution or other sexual abuse, forced marriage, forced organ donation, forced labor or slavery, use in the drug trade, use as beggars, and use as child soldiers [3][4][5]. These can overlap [6]. Continue reading
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