{"id":301249,"date":"2023-11-08T06:44:28","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T12:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=301249"},"modified":"2023-11-07T09:28:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T15:28:25","slug":"nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Nine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Nine people have been sentenced to jail for child trafficking in Russia following an investigation into the European Center of Surrogate Motherhood. In all, four fertility clinic employees and two surrogate mothers have been jailed, along with three employees of a surrogacy consulting company.<\/p>\n

According to The Moscow Times<\/a>, authorities began investigating the surrogacy company in 2020 after one of the babies born to a surrogate mother was found dead in an apartment outside of Moscow. Three other babies were found in the apartment as well. The deceased baby was said to be about a month old and the cause of death was determined to be sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The surviving babies were sent<\/a> to orphanages, though two of them were eventually ordered by the Russian Supreme Court to be returned to their legal Filipino parents.<\/p>\n

The investigation found that the babies had been conceived using unknown donors \u2014 not from the foreign couples who were said to be their parents.<\/p>\n

Moscow’s Nikulinsky District Court found the head of the center, Vladislav Melnikov, guilty of child trafficking. He was sentenced to 19.5 years in prison. Two of the surrogacy center doctors, embryologist Taras Ashitkov and endocrinologist Yuliana Ivanova, were sentenced to 17.5 years and 16.5 years, respectively, for child trafficking. OB\/GYN Lillya Panaioti was sentenced to 16 years and three months.<\/p>\n

In addition to the center staff, surrogate mothers Tatiana Blinova and Liliya Valeyeva were sentenced to four years and 10.5 years respectively. They maintain their innocence.<\/p>\n

Melnikov and Panaioti called the charges against them “lawless and absurd.” They argued that isn’t possible to sell children to their own parents.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Konstantin Svitnev, the CEO of Rosyurconsulting, a company that arranges surrogacy programs, has been placed on the wanted list after fleeing Russia. His colleagues, Roman Yemashev, interpreter Kirill Anisimov, and courier Valentina Chernsyshova were given prison sentences of 5-6 years following a plea deal.<\/p>\n

Women who act as surrogates are typically underprivileged<\/a> and are looking to improve their financial situation. Wealthy couples and individuals are willing to treat these women as property \u2014 buying insurance<\/a> in case the woman\u2019s body doesn\u2019t perform on demand as expected, or forcing a surrogate into an abortion if the baby is diagnosed with a disability<\/a>, if too many babies<\/a> implant, or even if the baby is the \u201cwrong\u201d gender<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Paid surrogacy is legal in Russia, but in December 2022, Russia banned<\/a> international surrogacy in the nation, allowing only Russians to use Russian women as surrogates.<\/p>\n

\"Walgreens<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nine people have been sentenced to jail for child trafficking in Russia following an investigation into the European Center of Surrogate Motherhood. In all, four fertility clinic employees and two surrogate mothers have been jailed, along with three employees of a surrogacy consulting company. According to The Moscow Times, authorities began investigating the surrogacy company […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":301277,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nNine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Authorities began investigating the surrogacy company in 2020 after one of the babies was found dead in an apartment outside of Moscow.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Authorities began investigating the surrogacy company in 2020 after one of the babies was found dead in an apartment outside of Moscow.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Live Action News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-11-08T12:44:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-07T15:28:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1482651460-surrogate.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"650\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@liveaction\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nancy Flanders\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nancy Flanders\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef\"},\"headline\":\"Nine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-08T12:44:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-07T15:28:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/\"},\"wordCount\":417,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"International\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/\",\"name\":\"Nine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-08T12:44:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-07T15:28:25+00:00\",\"description\":\"Authorities began investigating the surrogacy company in 2020 after one of the babies was found dead in an apartment outside of Moscow.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Nine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Live Action News\",\"description\":\"Covering Human Rights, Abortion, & Pro-Life Issues\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Live Action\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png\",\"width\":701,\"height\":710,\"caption\":\"Live Action\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/liveaction\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/liveactionorg\/\",\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/LiveActionFilms\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/LiveActionFilms\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef\",\"name\":\"Nancy Flanders\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nancy Flanders\"},\"description\":\"Nancy Flanders is Associate Editor for Live Action News. She has 25 years of experience writing and editing. For more than a decade, she has focused her work on pro-life issues through human interest stories and political issues regarding abortion and physician-assisted death as well as research articles and op-eds dismantling the lies of the pro-abortion, pro-death agenda. Her work has appeared in Catholic Digest, Pregnancy Help News, and a variety of other publications.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/author\/nancy\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Nine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia","description":"Authorities began investigating the surrogacy company in 2020 after one of the babies was found dead in an apartment outside of Moscow.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Nine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia","og_description":"Authorities began investigating the surrogacy company in 2020 after one of the babies was found dead in an apartment outside of Moscow.","og_url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/","og_site_name":"Live Action News","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction","article_published_time":"2023-11-08T12:44:28+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-11-07T15:28:25+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":650,"url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/GettyImages-1482651460-surrogate.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Nancy Flanders","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@liveaction","twitter_site":"@liveaction","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nancy Flanders","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/"},"author":{"name":"Nancy Flanders","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef"},"headline":"Nine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia","datePublished":"2023-11-08T12:44:28+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-07T15:28:25+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/"},"wordCount":417,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization"},"articleSection":["International"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/","name":"Nine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-11-08T12:44:28+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-07T15:28:25+00:00","description":"Authorities began investigating the surrogacy company in 2020 after one of the babies was found dead in an apartment outside of Moscow.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/nine-people-jailed-surrogacy-trafficking-russia\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Nine people jailed for surrogacy-related child trafficking in Russia"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/","name":"Live Action News","description":"Covering Human Rights, Abortion, & Pro-Life Issues","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#organization","name":"Live Action","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Live-Action-Logo-Black.png","width":701,"height":710,"caption":"Live Action"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/liveaction","https:\/\/twitter.com\/liveaction","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/liveactionorg\/","https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/LiveActionFilms\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/LiveActionFilms"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/d61ca3dd1aacf12635bdf71d75c328ef","name":"Nancy Flanders","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/dee54060bdc22fdfbf36d946b3026cca?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Nancy Flanders"},"description":"Nancy Flanders is Associate Editor for Live Action News. She has 25 years of experience writing and editing. For more than a decade, she has focused her work on pro-life issues through human interest stories and political issues regarding abortion and physician-assisted death as well as research articles and op-eds dismantling the lies of the pro-abortion, pro-death agenda. Her work has appeared in Catholic Digest, Pregnancy Help News, and a variety of other publications.","url":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/author\/nancy\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301249"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301249"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301278,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301249\/revisions\/301278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}