Author: Lisa Michelutto Saturday, September 14th, 2024
Country: Italy
SUMMARY
Human trafficking, particularly of newborns, is a growing issue in Kazakhstan. Newborns are being sold with online platforms facilitating these crimes. The government introduced new laws in July 2024 to strengthen the prosecution of trafficking and launched a pilot project in 2023 that assigns identification numbers to newborns to prevent illegal sales. However, challenges remain, including the use of surrogacy for trafficking. Efforts are ongoing to study global practices to address the issue.
BACKGROUND
A particular but not unrelated issue in the world is that of human trafficking, and more specifically the trafficking of infants. There are countries more and less affected by this problem, and to analyze one of the most serious cases it is appropriate to look at Kazakhstan. As we can indeed denote from a UN article Gulnaz Kelekeyeva, the head of a project presented by a UN NGO, Kazakhstan's Actions in Combating Child Trafficking, stated that “Unfortunately, in Kazakhstan, there has been virtually no nationwide research on social vulnerable children and the vulnerability of children to trafficking and exploitation.” “There are also no accurate statistics to assess the true scale of the problem.”
The situation in Kazakhstan is getting worse and worse, so much so that infants have gone as far as being sold for as much as $4500. The Kazakh government, clearly concerned about all this, decided in July this year to formulate a new law. This will facilitate the prosecution of crimes such as kidnapping, human trafficking, and prostitution.
Trafficking in infants and children has also developed over the years because of the Internet, in fact, many criminals now organize everything online. For this reason, Gulnaz Kelekeyeva warned that a thorough study and analysis should be made in this regard.
Also, doctors and obstetricians were found guilty of selling newborn babies in a hospital in Kazakhstan in 2023. Hence, action is fundamental to prevent and tackle this important issue. Unfortunately, child trafficking is not limited to buying and selling, but it also involves the sale of organs, sexual exploitation, and forced labor.
What does the Kazakh government do to improve the situation? Besides adopting the July 2024 law we already mentioned, from 2023 they adopted a pilot project. This project consists of giving an identification number to every newborn so that their trafficking becomes no longer possible. This project started in 2023 in one hospital in Astana, the country’s capital, but in 2024 it will be extended to every hospital.
However, it is not a simple issue. Many new techniques are being used to traffic children. For example, the possibility of insemination constitutes a problem because women are used as “incubators to bear children”. The result is that, when born, the child holds the DNA of both the mother and the father, of course. The issue is that if he is the father, he has the right to take the newborn abroad. This cannot be controlled. Sergei Ponomarev, a member of the Kazakh Parliament, indeed affirmed they are studying other countries’ experiences on this matter.
Hence, newborn trafficking is a problematic issue, because even if possible solutions are found and put to trial, there are always new possibilities for criminals, nowadays also with the help of technology.
REFERENCES
Konyorova, K. (July 30th, 2024). Kazakhstan tightens laws to combat trafficking of newborns. UN News. https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/07/1151491
Full access PDF:
Comments