17. When we talked to the mediator, Ms Karpachova, she said that since 1994 Ukraine had been faced with a problem of child trafficking covered up as international adoption. There had been investigations and a number of officials had been prosecuted.
18. During our conversation the mediator suggested that the delegation meet a mother whose daughter had given birth normally to twin girls after a pregnancy of 7 months. On the third day she saw only one of the twins and was refused access to the nursery. A nurse told her that one of the twins had died. She was not allowed to see it and was not given it for burial. She also noticed that the autopsy report gave the wrong date of birth. She complained to the prosecutor’s office and had blood tests carried out, whose results the prosecutor refused to register. She then turned to the health ministry, which refused to see her, and then to the chief prosecutor. There was no judicial inquiry and the hospital staff consistently backed up the hospital’s account.
19. The Ukrainian authorities pointed out that the matters in question occurred in 2002, and that at that time parents were legally prohibited from seeing their dead babies. Since then the law has been changed to allow the mother to see her baby and the father to be present at the birth.
20. The Ukrainian authorities also pointed out the steadily rising numbers of mothers opting not to keep their babies or having babies in order to sell them.
21. They likewise informed the parliamentary delegation that since 2003 proceedings had been instituted for illegal adoption in several cases in Ukraine and that the prosecutor’s office was conducting enquiries in search of fresh evidence.
22. In the period from 1996 to 2004 26,000 children had been adopted in Ukraine and 13,000 abroad. Each case was examined by the courts and the prosecutor’s office, but despite the rules there were still too many illegal adoptions.
23. With specific regard to the disappearances of newborn children, the Ukrainian authorities have set up an investigating committee and have found cases where doctors committed irregularities in connection with deliveries. An enquiry was instituted and Identikit pictures were issued.
24. Following the visit the parliamentary delegation was informed that the Ukrainian justice authorities had announced the exhumation of several newborn babies at Kharkov hospital. DNA tests are to be carried out.
25. According to some NGOs the disappearances are not an isolated instance and there have been similar occurrences in Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania and many other countries.
