A hospital involved in baby trafficking and illegal abortions has been ordered closed, Reem Leila reports Four nurses and four doctors, among a group involved in the selling and buying of newborns illegally adopted and smuggled into the United States, have been referred to the Cairo Criminal Court. The US Embassy in Cairo had filed a report to the police stating they suspected two Egyptian- American women who sought to issue a passport for two newborns -- a boy and a girl -- claiming they had given birth to them in Cairo. The women were arrested after confessing they had bought the boy for LE14,000 and the girl for LE8,000, in addition to paying LE10,000 to each doctor involved and LE25,000 to a broker. Saad El-Maghrabi, head of the Health Ministry's Central Administration for Non-Governmental Organisations and Licences, said two of the doctors and nurses accused of baby trafficking were working in the private Al-Andalous Hospital in the Gisr Al-Suez district, where illegal abortions had been performed, especially on females under the age of 18. "The Health Ministry has referred the hospital's doctors who conducted illegal abortions to the public prosecution office for investigation," El-Maghrabi said. The ministry reportedly discovered several other violations in the hospital, which is said to hire unqualified staff. "It does not have any qualified nursing staff. None of the nurses who work at the hospital have a nursing degree, neither do they have the medical licence to work as nurses," stated Abdel-Rahman Shahin, official spokesman of the Ministry of Health. All doctors working at Al-Andalous are general practitioners who are not qualified to undertake any of the operations made in the hospital. "If the doctors are found guilty of baby trafficking, they will be immediately laid off by the ministry," added Shahin. The Health Ministry has cracked down on Al-Andalous several times. According to Shahin, the ministry has issued three decrees to shut down the hospital, on 16, 21 and 29 December. "However, the hospital's administration ignored all three orders and continued to offer medical services," Shahin said. El-Maghrabi pointed out that during their last visit on 10 January -- when it discovered the involvement of the hospital with baby trafficking -- the ministry's private practice department found the hospital functioning normally despite orders to shut down. It was reported that during an investigation, doctors confessed selling newborns to other families, claiming they were helping end the problem of women pregnant with illegitimate babies and help them by giving them money by buying their babies. Al-Wafd opposition newspaper reported that Interpol has published on its website that abducted Egyptian children are usually of dual nationality and their ages range from two to 11 years of age. The opposition paper quoted the site stating that Interpol has published the photos of members of the gang, among them an American citizen of Iranian origin living in Nasr City in Cairo. Interpol assumes that children are being kidnapped by an organised gang and organisations located in Cairo. As a global problem, human trafficking demands global solutions, and requires all sectors in society to work together to end it. According to Mushira Khattab, secretary-general of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM), 161 countries are reported to be affected by the trade. The majority of victims are between the ages of two months and 24 years old, and an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. Some 3,000 to 5,000 women have been smuggled to countries lying on Egypt's eastern borders through the Sinai Desert to work as prostitutes. Khattab said Egypt is a transit stop and destination country for women trafficked from Eastern Europe to Israel and some Gulf countries for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The women generally arrive in Egypt through air and seaports as tourists, and are subsequently trafficked through the Sinai Desert by Bedouin tribes. In addition, some Egyptian children from rural areas are trafficked within the country to work as domestic servants or labourers in the agriculture industry. Iman Bibars of the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women (ADEW) believes that although the government of Egypt is making a significant effort to comply with the minimum standards of elimination of trafficking, it still has a long way to go. While the government has failed to conduct an assessment of the trafficking situation or draft a comprehensive anti-trafficking law, in 2005 it improved training for border security officials to prevent smuggling and trafficking. It also incorporated innovative tools to intercept traffickers as they travel through the Sinai Desert, Bibars stated. But Egypt has done little else over the past few years, she added. "The best way of addressing the demand side of trafficking human beings is to demolish the markets generating profits to the criminals," noted Bibars. "This would require identification of traffickers in order to be able to investigate trafficking cases, and prosecute and convict offenders." Unfortunately, she added, relatively few cases are prosecuted successfully, resulting in a very small number of convictions. Although Khattab partially agreed with Bibars's claims, she countered that while the government does not have a systematic mechanism to connect trafficking victims with organisations providing assistance, it does generally provide food, healthcare and lodging to some victims on an ad hoc basis. This is to ensure that trafficking victims are not detained with illegal migrants or deported without receiving assistance. Khattab believes the government has made a concerted effort to increase security in Sinai, especially with regard to alleged illegal activities by Sinai Bedouin tribes, which include trafficking of people. Border officials participated in training aimed at improving their skills in interdicting traffickers. Egypt has also increased scrutiny at major airports to prevent traffickers from entering the country, noted Khattab. Trafficking in human beings is the third largest growing criminal activity in the world, just behind arms and the drug trade. It has reached epidemic proportions over the past decade, with a global annual market of about $42.5 billion. Approximately 2.5 million people are trafficked across international borders every year, approximately 70 per cent of whom are children and women. According to the International Labour Organisation one person is being trafficked every three seconds. The victims are always the most vulnerable: children and women living in poverty, mostly in developing countries and in countries in transition, which are brought into this illegal traffic through force, deception and violence. The problem, which brings huge and quick benefits to its perpetrators, has been exacerbated by globalisation, including the use of both brokers and the Internet.
