ΝΕΕΣ ΑΠΟΚΑΛΥΨΕΙΣ/ΒΟΥΛΓΑΡΕΣ ΓΕΝΝΑΝΕ ΤΑ ΠΑΙΔΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΕΡΧΟΝΤΑΙ ΚΑΙ ΤΑ ΠΟΥΛΑΝΕ ΣΤΗΝ ΧΩΡΑ ΜΑΣ/Η ΜΑΥΡΗ ΑΓΟΡΑ ΤΟΥ ΕΜΠΟΡΙΟΥ ΒΡΕΦΩΝ.
23.12.15 Analysts for Change
Lives for Sale: Bulgaria’s Booming Black Market in Babies for Greeks
BALKANINSIGHT
Pregnant Bulgarians travel to Greece to sell their babies to couples desperate to adopt, a trade that is flourishing while efforts to counter it flounderJuliana Koleva & Kostas Kallergis Sofia, Burgas, Athens, Thessaloniki, Lamia
This single-storey shabby house was bought with money (3500 euros) from the sale of a newborn baby boy, left by his parents to be adopted by a Greek family. (at the picture - one of Stanka`s sons in front of the house). Village of Ekzarh Antimovo, Southeast Bulgaria. May, 2015. PHOTO Juliana Koleva
"Ah, don't even ask, in our village almost everybody has left a baby in Greece. I at least managed to buy myself this little house with the bloody money, so we’d have somewhere to live with the kids. I haven’t squandered a single lev."
“But many people here give away babies for the easy money - they drink, they eat, they party. When the money runs out, they just sell the next baby."
This is Stanka, a woman in her thirties from Bulgaria’s marginalised Roma minority who admits she sold a new-born boy in Greece a few years ago for 3,500 ($3,700) euros, a crime for which she is currently on trial.
“I regret it all the time and can’t stop thinking of that boy, but I was young and stupid. I couldn’t imagine any other way to earn some money to feed my other two children, I had no hope,” she says, her voice trembling.
23.12.15 Analysts for Change
Lives for Sale: Bulgaria’s Booming Black Market in Babies for Greeks
BALKANINSIGHT
Pregnant Bulgarians travel to Greece to sell their babies to couples desperate to adopt, a trade that is flourishing while efforts to counter it flounderJuliana Koleva & Kostas Kallergis Sofia, Burgas, Athens, Thessaloniki, Lamia
This single-storey shabby house was bought with money (3500 euros) from the sale of a newborn baby boy, left by his parents to be adopted by a Greek family. (at the picture - one of Stanka`s sons in front of the house). Village of Ekzarh Antimovo, Southeast Bulgaria. May, 2015. PHOTO Juliana Koleva
"Ah, don't even ask, in our village almost everybody has left a baby in Greece. I at least managed to buy myself this little house with the bloody money, so we’d have somewhere to live with the kids. I haven’t squandered a single lev."
“But many people here give away babies for the easy money - they drink, they eat, they party. When the money runs out, they just sell the next baby."
This is Stanka, a woman in her thirties from Bulgaria’s marginalised Roma minority who admits she sold a new-born boy in Greece a few years ago for 3,500 ($3,700) euros, a crime for which she is currently on trial.
“I regret it all the time and can’t stop thinking of that boy, but I was young and stupid. I couldn’t imagine any other way to earn some money to feed my other two children, I had no hope,” she says, her voice trembling.
