Beijing (AFP)
Cherry Lin thoughtfully strokes a onesie, fearing it will soon be too small for her son she has yet to meet: Border closures due to coronavirus pandemic have separated hundreds of Chinese women from children born to mothers carriers abroad.
China banned the use of surrogacy for commercial or altruistic purposes in 2001 for fear that needy women would be exploited.
But for amounts ranging from 35,000 to 70,000 dollars, couples can have recourse to surrogate mothers abroad, from Laos to Russia via Ukraine, Georgia or the United States.
The system fell into chaos, however, with the pandemic, which caused borders to be closed and flights and visas canceled.
Dozens of newborns end up in orphanages or apartments awaiting their birth parents, according to commercial surrogacy agencies (surrogacy) in Russia and Ukraine.
"I can't sleep at night, I think about my baby, trapped in an orphanage," Lin, who has used a surrogate mother after several miscarriages, told AFP.
Her baby was born in St. Petersburg in June, three months after Russia closed its border with China to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
"We don't know how long we have to wait," said the 38-year-old lawyer from Chengdu, in southern China.
Rising incomes, high rates of infertility and the desire of older couples, who are well beyond the reproductive age, to have a son after Chinese authorities eased the rule in 2016 from the only child, caused an upsurge in the demands of procreation for others.
Lin and her husband traveled to Russia last year for in vitro fertilization and to sign a contract with a local surrogacy agency.
When the pregnancy was confirmed, she bought the baby products and even took child first aid training.
But the pandemic plunged her into a real "nightmare", and she only knew her newborn baby since birth through photos and videos sent by the agency.
- Fear of organ sale -
Neither the Chinese Foreign Ministry nor the Russian Embassy in Beijing responded to AFP's inquiries about what they were doing to help Chinese parents repatriate their babies.
There are no official figures on how many of these Chinese babies were born overseas and separated from their intended parents.
But a video posted in June by a surrogacy agency in Ukraine, showing babies in cribs lined up in a hotel, gives some idea of the extent of the crisis.
Nearly half of the 46 babies were from Chinese customers, a spokesperson for the agency, BioTexCom, told AFP.
Authorities have since issued special permits for intending parents to pick up their children despite the border closures.
But that's not enough for Li Mingxia, whose son was born in May in Kiev.
Due to the quarantine measures and the flights which have become scarce, she will not be able to see her baby until the end of November.
“I'm going to miss the first six months of his life,” she says.
"This is something I will not be able to catch up with."
Most babies born abroad do not have birth certificates because their parents cannot travel to take the DNA tests necessary to prove parentage.
Russian and Ukrainian police have also started raiding "dens", apartments where five or six babies are kept by a nanny, for fear of human trafficking, according to Russian state media.
"When the police find several undocumented Chinese babies in a house with a stranger, it looks like trafficking in children for the sale of organs," said Dmitriy Sitzko, China marketing director of the Vera agency in St. Petersburg.
This agency, which Lin used, found a free place in a state orphanage for her baby.
But some Russian agencies charge parents between $ 1,000 and $ 3,000 per month, says Sitzko.
- Celebrities trivialize surrogacy -
Nearly one in four couples of childbearing age in China suffered from infertility, according to a 2017 study published in the medical journal The Lancet.
Some studies have linked high levels of pollution to declining male fertility, while women choose to delay motherhood because of the high cost of living and childcare costs.
And the use of stars like Elton John, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nicole Kidman or Kim Kardashian West to assisted reproduction to expand their families has helped to trivialize this controversial practice.
The UN has warned that commercial surrogacy risks turning children into "commodities" and called for better regulation where it is legal.
"There is no right to have a child under international law. Children are not goods or services that the state can guarantee or provide. They are human beings with rights", noted Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children, in a 2018 report.
Only a few countries allow the international trade of surrogacy.
Based on interviews conducted by AFP with 15 agencies, it appears that surrogacy can cost between $ 35,000 and $ 50,000 in Ukraine and Georgia, $ 73,000 in Russia and $ 200,000 in California, one of the few states. Americans where it is permitted.
Russia and the former Soviet republics like Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus are the most popular destinations for Chinese couples looking for surrogate mothers.
These countries have replaced the countries of Asia where only Laos still allows commercial surrogacy for foreigners, India and Thailand having banned it.
And even in Russia and Ukraine, opposition is starting to mount against the practice, with politicians and activists believing that women and children are being exploited by wealthy foreigners.
- Black market babies -
Due to global restrictions due to the pandemic, people in China are now turning to the black market.
Shenzhou Zhongtai, an agency in the southern city of Gaungzhou, told AFP it costs 600,000 yuan ($ 87,000) for "a successful transplant and delivery."
To which we can add "200,000 yuan (about $ 30,000) for the selection of the sex of the baby, and another 200,000 yuan for dragon and phoenix twins", that is, a girl and a boy, according to another agent.
Army officers, Chinese Communist Party cadres or judges who are not allowed to travel due to their sensitive positions, are the main clients of underground surrogacy agencies in China, which are not sanctioned due to their links with officials.
© 2020 AFP