Clinic boss tried to give baby to strangers - prosecutors say

Law enforcement officers has reported suspicions to the co-owner of a capital clinic for reproductive medicine and its manager, who tried to hand over a newborn girl to a couple from China, knowing that this was not their child.

On Telegram on Friday, the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office reported that a couple from China came to Ukraine to use the services of the surrogacy program provided by a capital private clinic.

According to the prosecutor's office, the surrogate mother gave birth to twins for the couple - a boy and a girl.

"Furthermore, in order for foreigners to officially become parents of children and register them, a genetic examination was conducted. The examination established that the man is not the father of the girl, only the boy is his relative," the report states.

The prosecutor's office emphasizes that, knowing this, the clinic representatives still tried to hand over the girl to the couple, helping them to recognize paternity through the court in order to take the child away.

"Ultimately, the couple returned to China with their son, who was born in Ukraine. The clinic's managers left the girl with a nanny in a rented apartment in Kyiv until the issue is resolved in court," the prosecutor's office said.

According to the report, the clinic's representatives were supposed to officially transfer the child, who has no parents, to the care of the state, but they did not do so. Instead, their goal was to give the child to foreigners who paid for the birth of two children.

The newborn girl, who was born in Kyiv in May of this year from a surrogate mother, is currently under the care of the state, and law enforcement officers are establishing who her parents are.

Under the procedural guidance of juvenile prosecutors of the Pechersk District Prosecutor's Office of Kyiv, suspicion was reported to the co-owner of a private reproductive medicine clinic and the clinic manager, who tried to give the newborn girl to a couple from China, knowing that this was not their child.

They are suspected of an unfinished attempt to traffic a minor child and illegal intermediary activities in the adoption of a child, in prior conspiracy by a group of persons (Part 3 of Article 15, Part 3 of Article 149, Part 2 of Article 169 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).