A court in Krasnoyarsk has sentenced a 34-year-old resident of Novosibirsk, who was a surrogate mother and gave birth to a child for a couple from China. According to NGS24, the woman was found guilty under Part 2 of Art. 127.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (trafficking in relation to a minor) and sentenced to 3 years of probation.
The woman, whose name is not named, in 2019 began to cooperate with the Didiliya company, which provided surrogacy services. She underwent the fertilization procedure abroad, and she gave birth to a child in 2020 in Krasnoyarsk. The woman received 850 thousand rubles and issued a power of attorney to the general director of Didilia so that he could dispose of the child. Due to the pandemic, the baby could not be taken to China to the biological parents.
According to the prosecutor's office, the authorities took away 20 children born by surrogate mothers with the assistance of the Krasnoyarsk firm. 17 of them are in orphanages, three more are under the care of Russian families.
The first surrogate mother was convicted in the Didilia case in July 2022. Kazakh citizen Tamara Yandieva was found guilty of human trafficking and sentenced to three years in prison. As the woman's lawyer explained to The Insider, due to the fact that the biological father of the child could not come for him on time, Yandiyeva had to register the child for herself so that he would not end up in an orphanage. “She wanted to ensure the child's rights and legitimate interests. The investigators considered that this was child trafficking,” the lawyer explained. The second surrogate mother, who collaborated with Didilia, was convicted in October. She was sentenced to probation.
In addition, in April 2022, the court passed a sentence on the head of the legal department of the Krasnoyarsk Perinatal Center, who, according to investigators, ordered the nurse to enter incorrect information in medical birth certificates: instead of surrogate mothers, Chinese citizens were entered there. The woman was sentenced to two years of restriction of freedom and a fine of 30 thousand rubles.
Didilia's CEO Stanislav Goncharovsky and two employees of the firm, Vadim Yanin, head physician of the perinatal center, and his deputy, Tatyana Menshikova, remain under investigation.
Another criminal case on the sale of children born by surrogate mothers has been under investigation since 2020 in Moscow. This case involves the firms Rosyurconsulting and European Surrogate Technologies, whose employees were accused of selling children to foreigners. In May 2022, a Moscow court sentenced a translator from one of the companies to 6 years in a strict regime colony. Another 10 people are involved in the case, three of whom have been put on the international wanted list.
At the end of 2022, a law was passed in Russia prohibiting the provision of surrogacy services to foreigners, as well as to single men.
