The babies are being cared for at the Venice Hotel in the capital city Kyiv
Due to be collected by parents from places also including Italy, Spain and France
Parents have paid between £5,745 and £57,365 to company BioTexCom
The firm describes itself as a ‘centre for human reproduction
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A shocking video shows almost 50 surrogate babies stranded in Ukraine due to the coronavirus lockdown.
Some 46 newborns are crammed in a dormitory at the Venice Hotel in capital city Kyiv – in what looks like a baby factory.
They are due to be collected by parents from the UK, USA, Italy, Spain, France, Israel, Germany, China, Mexico, Romania and other countries.
Parents have paid between £5,745 and £57,365 for services from the organisation that has assisted them with starting families.
But they are unable to collect the children because Ukraine’s borders have been closed as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak.
A shocking video shows almost 50 surrogate babies stranded in Ukraine due to the coronavirus lockdown
Commercial surrogacy – where a woman agrees to bear a child for someone else in return for money – is illegal in most European countries including the UK but is permitted in Ukraine.
The crying children are being cared for by staff but the images have alarmed the human rights ombudsman for the Ukrainian parliament, Liudmila Denisova.
‘A video was spread on social media and shared via a website of one of Kiev clinics,’ she said.
‘It showed 46 babies who are currently in one of the Kyiv hotels. All these babies were born by surrogate mothers for citizens of various foreign states.’
She said that the video confirms the systematic and large scale provision of surrogate services by Ukraine to the world.
‘This video confirms that the situation with the provision of surrogacy services by this clinic is mass and systemic, and surrogacy technologies are advertised and presented as “high quality goods”,’ she said.