Precis

With international surrogacy now banned in Thailand and India, a thriving industry has sprung up in Ukraine, attracting heterosexual couples from around the world, including Australia.

But how much do would-be parents really know about the business which delivers their baby?

In Motherland, Europe correspondent Samantha Hawley goes behind the slick surrogacy websites and glossy brochures to expose the industry’s dark underbelly.

In a 6-month investigation, Foreign Correspondent meets those caught up in Ukraine’s baby business and uncovers an industry with few rules and fewer scruples.

The new parent
“It was a reckless decision to make, because we didn’t have all the facts,” says English woman ‘Kate’ who turned to surrogacy after an illness left her unable to have a child.

When the birth of her baby boy in Ukraine went badly, Kate couldn’t get him the urgent medical help he needed. She realised she was out of her depth. Now she worries about the long-term health effects on her baby.

The surrogate mother
“They don’t treat you as a human being,” says one birth mother, who signed up as a surrogate to feed her family after the war with Russia left her homeless.

To earn a small fee, she endured forced terminations, caesareans and callous treatment at the hands of her agency. “Surrogate mothers…we’re just a flow of incubators,” she says.

The abandoned child
We tracked down a little girl living in a children’s home in south east Ukraine. She had been rejected by her American parents and was stateless and an orphan.

This is a common story, says Ukraine’s Children’s Ombudsman, who has reports of at least ten children left behind by the parents and agencies who ‘commissioned’ them.

“This is an immoral business,” says the Ombudsman. “It does harm.”

The businessman
And we put hard questions to the owner of one of Ukraine’s biggest surrogacy agencies, a man who was recently under house arrest facing charges of child trafficking and tax avoidance. Join us for this gripping and gut-wrenching tale.

Motherland monument, Kiev

Music

00:00

Hotel Ukraine exterior

SAMANTHA HAWLEY, Reporter: In Ukraine, the baby business is booming. It’s the new go-to destination

00:06

Pamela and Yan with baby Quinn

for commercial surrogacy.

PAMELA HARDY:  Where are your smiles? No yet, too young.

00:12

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: While it brings joy to some…

00:18

Marina Boyko

MARINA BOYKO: No one gave her a chance.

00:20

Marina visits Bridget

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: …there’s heartache for others. We uncover an ugly trade.

00:22

Kate Hardy video cockroaches in room

KATE SMITH: I think these are cockroaches.  They’re all over the side.

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: And confront those responsible.

00:32

Hawley to Tochilovsky

"How many children that you oversee the birth of though, your company, are born with brain damage?"

00:38

Baby

Music

00:44

Title over Motherland monument:
Motherland

00:49

Super:
Kiev, Ukraine

00:56

Hawley on tram, Kiev. Super:
Reporter
Samantha Hawley

01:03

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: I’ve been reporting on international commercial surrogacy for over half a decade, and revealed horrific cases of babies left behind in Thailand and India.

01:10

Kiev traffic/Motherland monument/Women with children

Both countries have since banned commercial surrogacy for foreigners, but now a thriving trade has sprung up in Ukraine.

01:23

Aerial. Motherland monument

Childless couples from around the world are travelling here because they’re told it’s safe and affordable. This is the new “motherland”.

01:39

Hawley on street to camera

When couples come to Kiev to engage in surrogacy they’ll get a sense of a bustling cosmopolitan city.  But in reality, Ukraine is one of the poorest nations in Europe, with a third of the population living under the poverty line and tens of thousands of children in institutional care. Not to mention this is a nation at war.

01:55

Kiev skyline GVs

Music

02:20

Pamela and Yan with baby Quinn

02:29

PAMELA HARDY:  We kind of read up and made sure we were nowhere near a war zone.

02:39

Pamela and Yan

We kept in touch with people who had been here and visited and were having babies, so it wasn’t something that concerned us.”

02:44

Pamela and Yan with baby Quinn

Music

02:51

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: Irish born Aussie, Pamela Hardy, survived cervical cancer, but the illness left her unable to fall pregnant. She and her partner, Yan, who live in Sydney, explored surrogacy in a number of countries before settling on Ukraine. Finally, they have a daughter, Quinn, born here in Kiev, with the help of a local Ukrainian woman.

02:55

PAMELA HARDY:  "Where’s your smiles, not yet, too young!"

I mean we’ve had a great experience,

03:22

Pamela and Yan

with our agency, with our clinic, with the hospital, with our surrogate.

03:28

Pamela and Yan with baby Quinn

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  Commercial surrogacy, where a woman is paid to carry a child for someone else, is legal in Ukraine for heterosexual married couples who can prove there is a medical reason for their infertility.  After that, the official regulations stop.

03:31

Baby Quinn belches

PAMELA HARDY [laughing]:  "Your big moment."

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  While there are many parents with positive stories like Pamela and Yan, we’ve also uncovered a dark side to the Ukrainian surrogacy industry.

03:54

UK Parliament building

Music

04:11

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  Our investigation begins in the UK.

04:20

Family photos. Kate and Greg Smith

Kate and Greg Smith – not their real names – tried for 12 years to have a baby, but Kate’s diagnosis of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome meant that nothing worked.

KATE SMITH:  It just felt like a huge loss and a sadness.

04:23

Kate Smith

It felt like a gap and a hole in our life that we couldn’t fill no matter what we tried to do.

04:42

Kate and Greg Smith wedding photo

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  The couple researched the option of commercial

04:47

Hawley with Kat Smith

surrogacy abroad but didn’t think they could afford it.

04:53

KATE SMITH:  Something must have come up on my Google feed for BioTexCom for a Ukrainian surrogacy clinic, which even though it was very expensive, it kind of felt like it was doable. It could, in the future we could do that, we could get it.

04:57

BioTexCom web pages

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  BioTexCom claims to be one of Ukraine’s best and busiest surrogacy clinics, touting a 100% guarantee you’ll have a baby.

05:11

Music

05:25

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: The couple used Greg’s sperm and a donor egg to impregnate a surrogate. BioTexCom made it clear they didn’t want Kate to contact her surrogate directly, but the women managed to keep in touch secretly via social media.

05:29

Family photos. Kate and Greg Smith

KATE SMITH:  I was able to just check in

05:49

Kate 100%

once every few weeks.  I wasn’t pestering her, but once every few weeks I would check in and she was lovely.

05:54

BioTexCom web pages

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  That’s how Kate found out her surrogate had developed problems around the 25th week of her pregnancy. The clinic told Kate nothing.

06:01

Photos. Baby Michael/Kate and Michael with baby

Just 10 weeks later baby Michael was born – a little prematurely – and Kate and Greg rushed to Kiev.

06:11

Hospital corridors

When she first held the baby, Kate knew something was terribly wrong. 

KATE SMITH:  My first initial thoughts were

06:22

Kate 100%

he was just very floppy, very sleepy still, and it kind of triggered something in me that something wasn’t right for him.

06:29

Hospital exterior

Music

06:36

Photos. Michael and Kate with baby Michael

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  Michael was discharged from hospital eight days after birth, but Kate couldn’t leave Kiev until she had a passport for him. She repeatedly asked for a specialist to see her baby, and after four weeks an appointment was finally made.

06:43

Kate 100%

KATE SMITH:  As soon as the neurologist saw him, she said there’s something wrong and he needs some scanning of his brain.

06:59

Photo. Baby Michael

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  The scan established Michael had suffered brain damage

07:05

Kate's video. Hospital room

and he was immediately admitted to a public children’s hospital, where Kate filmed these pictures on her phone.

07:13

KATE SMITH:   "This is the bed I’m meant to sleep on and it’s obviously heavily stained, and they want me to put Mikey in here; as you can see that’s blood.”

07:20

Kate 100%

I didn’t realise the health care was that bad in Ukraine, because you’re only shown the clinic which is pristine. You’re only shown private settings, which are pristine, but if you have a baby out there with a neurological condition there is not a private establishment that will take you, and so I wasn’t prepared for the state of the state hospitals.

07:35

Framed photos. Kate and Greg with baby Michael

Music

07:55

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  It would be 14 weeks before Kate could get her baby out of Ukraine and back to the UK.  She’s still haunted by how dire the public health system is in Ukraine

08:01

Kate's video. Hospital room. Cockroaches

KATE SMITH:   "I think these are cockroaches. They’re all over the side and this is where I’m meant to prepare the bottles. There's no kettle so…Oh, Jesus."

08:13

Framed photos. Baby Michael

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  And she’s still not sure what the impact will be on baby Michael’s development.

08:32

Kiev tram. Kiev GVs

Music

08:39

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  What happened to the Smith family is just one of many troubling stories I’ve heard about the commercial surrogacy industry here.

08:47

Driving to Zaporizhia  

I’m heading south east to Zaporizhia  to investigate another disturbing case. This city is one the largest industrial centres in Ukraine; home to a range of heavy metal industries and high levels of pollution. 

09:00

Hawley walks to children's home

I’m looking for an abandoned child – a little girl who was born via commercial surrogacy, then left behind by the parents who commissioned her birth. She has been living in this children’s home since March this year.

09:20

Hawley greets Marina Boyko

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  "Hi Marina."

Before that, she was in a hospital where this woman, Marina Boyko, cared for her.

09:36

Marina and Hawley visit Bridget

09:44

MARINA BOYKO:  "Hello my little mouse. Hello, come to me. Are you scared?

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  This is Bridget.  She is three years old. Her American parents chose the name, but her Ukrainian carers call her Brizzi.

MARINA BOYKO:  No one gave her a chance. They said she’d be blind and deaf, that she’d never be able to eat independently.

09:47

Marina 100%

Because of her premature birth she was underdeveloped, with an extremely low body mass.  After a while I noticed she reacted to sound. 

10:12

Marina plays with Bridget

Then she fixed her eyes on things. She could see. Then we realised she had a chance.

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  Born at 25 weeks and weighing just 850 grams, they won’t say exactly what’s wrong with Bridget other than that she has a range of developmental delays.

MARINA BOYKO:  She understands when people speak to her.  She’s good at stuff. 

10:26

Marina 100%

She knows the telephone. I give it to her and she will say “hello” into it. She understands she is being talked to. She’s learnt lots of things.

11:05

Marina plays with Bridget

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  Marina visits the little girl as often as she can on her days off.

MARINA BOYKO:  I realise she has this feeling she’s being abandoned again.

11:16

Marina 100%

I explain to her: “Brizzi, I haven’t abandoned you… I come to see you, I love you.”  But she doesn’t see me all the time…that’s why I come here. I can’t let her feel betrayed again. 

11:30

Marina plays with Bridget

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  The head of the local child protection agency gives me some background about Bridget.

11:48

Natalia Syvoraksha 100%

NATALIA SYVORAKSHA:  A hospital informed us that a baby had been born to a woman who was forcefully displaced from Donetsk. She was a surrogate mother and she had twins. One of the babies died due to ill health, but a baby girl survived.

12:00

GFX: Stylised vision, new baby/Document overlay/BioTexCom GFX

Music

12:21

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  Documents seen by Foreign Correspondent show that Bridget’s twin brother died at birth and that she was very ill.  Her parents are US citizens who commissioned their babies through the surrogacy agency, BioTexCom. When Bridget was five months old her parents sent a letter authorising her life support be switched off. It said, 'She is in a vegetative state and has no chance of becoming a normal person. Doctors advise we stop any treatment so she can find peace. We will not take her to America. This baby is incurable.'

12:26

Bridge with hospital worker and Marina

Bridget survived, but despite attempts by Ukrainian authorities to get advice about her future from her American parents, it took nearly two years for a second letter to be sent.  That letter instructed that the baby be put up for adoption, but it isn’t binding under Ukrainian law, leaving Bridget’s status unclear.

13:11

Natalia Syvoraksha 100%

NATALIA SYVORAKSHA:  She is stateless, as I understand it. Her parents are American.

13:37

Bridget in cot

She was born here but not recognised there and I can’t confirm she is Ukrainian either.

13:43

Bridget with Marina

MARINA BOYKO:  You can’t judge a child as soon as she’s born.

13:50

Marina 100% interview

“We don’t like this child, we wanted you to have a Hollywood smile at birth.”

13:58

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  What would you say to the Americans if you ever had the opportunity to meet them?

MARINA BOYKO:   I would say to them that they have an amazing daughter.

14:02

Bridget with Marina

I understand people who leave their children behind because of the difficult situations they find themselves in,

14:13

Marina 100%

but in this case, I don’t understand it at all.

14:23

Driving to Pervomaisk

Music

14:29

Driving to Pervomaisk continues

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:   I’ve spoken to couples coming to Ukraine for surrogacy, and I’m also keen to hear from the women at the heart of this industry – the surrogate mothers. I’ve been able to get in touch with a woman who worked as a surrogate mother for BioTexCom. We’re heading five hours east of Kiev, towards the regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, where the 2014 war played out.  Thousands of people displaced by the conflict fled to border towns like this one, Pervomaisk. They’re stuck here now, unable to return home.

14:33

Hawley to camera on street, Pervomaisk

This is exactly the sort of Ukrainian town the agencies are targeting to find their surrogates. It’s remote and it’s poor. For the women here, the money they’d earn from carrying someone else’s baby is very hard to resist and it’s life changing.

15:26

Hawley with surrogate mother in park

This woman was recruited here by BioTexCom and carried Kate Smith’s baby, Michael. She wishes to remain anonymous because she fears recriminations from the surrogacy company. She came here with her husband and baby son to escape bombing in the east, which destroyed their home. They had no money and no access to any help.

15:54

SURROGATE:   So my husband said that he would sell his kidney. I just stumbled on an ad on the internet.  I started googling to find out what it was.  A girl on this group replied and told me what it was and how it was done.

16:18

BioTexCom exterior

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:   She tells me she first worked for

16:39

Surrogacy clinic interiors. Super:
Recreation

BioTexCom as the surrogate for a Spanish couple. She was impregnated with three embryos, but then forced to terminate one so that she would only carry twins. This is to increase the chance of a successful pregnancy – live births mean more money for BioTexCom. 

16:46

Hawley with surrogate mother in park

SURROGATE:  I was given hormonal support all the time and then they stopped. After about a week, I started to bleed.

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  Five months into the pregnancy, unable to stop the bleeding, she was told she had to have an emergency caesarean and the babies died.

17:08

SURROGATE:  I asked what I should do with them because they were pretty big. They told me to cremate them. 

17:29

BioTexCom signage/Company office exteriors

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  She eventually received the equivalent of about $200. Still desperate for money, she put herself forward again with BioTexCom and this time became Kate Smith’s surrogate. Again, she was impregnated with three embryos and this time they terminated two, hoping she would carry the remaining embryo to full term.

17:39

Hawley with surrogate mother in park

SURROGATE:  Kate said that they were happy there was just one child because they only wanted one. I told the interpreter I had three and I’d had a termination. She told me the parents didn’t need to know that.

18:04

GVs Pervomaisk

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  She confirms what Kate Smith says – that bleeding started at 25 weeks.  After a difficult pregnancy, she had another caesarean and baby Michael was taken away immediately.

18:19

Hawley with surrogate mother in park

SURROGATE: After seven days they came to me and told me about the baby. They said the baby had problems.

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:   I asked her how she feels about BioTexCom.

18:36

SURROGATE:  Surrogate mothers, they’re just surrogates, a flow of incubators, as they say. They don’t treat you as a human being, they show no understanding.

18:50

Motherland monument, Kiev

Music

19:04

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  These stories about BioTexCom come as no surprise to

19:07

Hawley walks with Antonov

Sergii Antonov, a Kiev based barrister who trained in Ukraine and Australia.

SERGII ANTONOV: "We have a very difficult legal system in Ukraine."

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  Sergii specialises in family law and surrogacy.

19:11

Motherland monument, Kiev

Music

19:26

Hawley in office with Antonov looking at surrogacy contract

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  Kate Smith approached him for legal advice about her BioTexCom contract, but he couldn’t help her because the company isn’t registered in Ukraine, but offshore in the Seychelles. It’s not the only surrogacy agency set up like this.

19:29

Motherland monument, Kiev

SERGII ANTONOV: A lot of agencies are phantoms, they do not exist.

19:48

Antonov 100%

They are not registered in Ukraine. They have many impressive websites and ads. They’re given a contract saying the services are provided in Ukraine, but the service organiser isn’t Ukrainian. When there are any legal issues, Ukrainian lawyers can’t help.

19:57

Marina with Bridget

SERGII ANTONOV:  Meanwhile, caught up in her own bureaucratic nightmare, the fate of little Bridget is still uncertain. And the clock is ticking. If she isn’t adopted, she will be transferred at age seven to another institution where there’s no rehabilitation. 

20:18

Marina 100%

MARINA BOYKO:  Here, I’m close.  Once she’s seven they’ll move her to a home for children with disabilities. I won’t be able to come to see her like I do now. I don’t know what effect that will have on her. The more stress, the more she regresses.

20:46

Marina with Bridget

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  At age 18, she’ll be sent to an old people’s home. Marina Boyko is desperate to find her an alternative.

21:04

Hawley calls Matthew Etynre

Foreign Correspondent has managed to track down Bridget’s parents in America. 

MATTHEW ETYNRE: "Hello?"

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  "Oh, hello, is this Mathew Etynre?"

MATTHEW ETYNRE: "Yes, it is."

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: "Oh, hello. My name's Samantha Hawley. I’m from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation…"

Mathew Etynre and Irmgard Pagan live in California.

21:17

"We’ve been in Ukraine and we’ve seen your daughter Bridget."

MATTHEW ETYNRE:  "Yes."

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  "And we’re doing a story on Bridget and how she was left in Ukraine by yourself, and I’m just ringing to see whether or not you want to be part of the program?

21:44

We’ve filmed with Bridget and the nurse that has been caring for her for the past three years…"

Mr Etynre doesn’t deny being Bridget’s father.

"So these are…"

MATTHEW ETYNRE: "Okay, I wish I had a pen, yeah I have to talk to my wife."

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  "Yes."

22:10

But he’s not keen to tell me their side of the story or take responsibility for Bridget.

MATTHEW ETYNRE: "I don’t really want to talk to you right now about it, I need to talk to my wife."

22:31

Driving to BioTexCom headquarters

Music

22:45

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: I’ve come to BioTexCom headquarters. I’m surprised my request for an interview with the owner, Albert Tochilovsky, has been granted.

22:52

Aerial. BioTexCom headquarters

The company is in downtown Kiev on a huge purpose-built site.  It’s a one stop baby making shop.

23:04

BioTexCom headquarters exteriors

In May last year, Tochilovsky

23:18

Hawley into BioTexCom office

was briefly placed under house arrest amid allegations of child trafficking, document forgery and tax avoidance.  But to date, he hasn’t been brought before the courts.

ANASTASIA:  "This is Albert."

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: "Hello, so nice to meet you."

ANASTASIA:  "This is Denis; he’s our legal advisor."

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  "Oh, thank you, nice to meet you, too."

We were promised a sit down interview,

23:21

Hawley interviews Tochilovsky

but then we’re told he’s only got 10 minutes…

[To Tochilovsky]: Do you know Matthew Etynre? He was a client of yours who left a baby behind in Zaporizhia.

23:43

ALBERT TOCHILOVSKY:  He’s is not our client.  This is a lie. This is a 100 percent lie.  We can check our database, right now. We’ve never had such a client here. 100 percent.

23:54

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: We have seen documentation that he was your client, an American client. He had twins, one died, he left the second behind.

24:08

ALBERT TOCHILOVSKY:  Etynre? We never had such client. Maybe someone has issued paperwork in our name, but that is impossible. We can call in our head physician… 

24:16

This is the representative of my American-British-Australian department. Tell me about Etynre.  Which Etynre has abandoned the child?

ANASTASIA: I don’t remember. I don’t remember any such client of ours, and of course I appreciate that we have a lot of clients, but believe me such a situation we would have remembered. 

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  At this point, Mr Tochilovsky offers to do an investigation into the case of the Etynres and little Bridget.

24:31

He claims that it’s probably the fault of another agency pretending to be BioTexCom.

25:00

[To Tochilovsky]:  How many cases have you overseen where babies have been born with brain damage?

25:07

And now we get a telling admission…

ALBERT TOCHILOVSKY:  This is a difficult question. There were some cases of brain damage. I am not that interested in the parents, to tell the truth. I’m more concerned about our surrogates not suffering through difficult deliveries.

25:13

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  But Albert’s concern for his surrogates doesn’t stack up with the stories we’ve heard.  And his claims other agencies are trying to sabotage his company’s reputation are unconvincing.

25:39

Ext. National Children's Council of Ukraine. Hawley visits children's ombudsman Kuleba

There is one Ukrainian official keeping a very close eye on surrogacy agencies offering their services to foreign couples.

25:56

Kuleba interview

Nikolai Kuleba is the Children’s Ombudsman and he’s extremely disturbed by how many agencies behave.

[to Kuleba]: What’s your opinion of the surrogacy agencies that are operating here in Ukraine.

26:07

Kuleba 100%

NIKOLAI KULEBA:  This is an immoral business. It does harm. These companies don’t care who they provide their services to, why and how they are provided, who they are providing a child to. They are more interested in the income.

26:23

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  And then he reveals Bridget isn’t the only child who’s been abandoned.

26:40

NIKOLAI KULEBA:  I can name up to ten cases, and these are the ones I am aware of. But I can assume there are instances that we don’t know about.

26:47

SAMANTHA HAWLEY:  He’s lobbying the newly elected President of Ukraine to introduce tougher legislation to better protect surrogate mothers and children.

27:01

Kate with baby Michael

Back in the UK, baby Michael has celebrated his first birthday, and Kate and Greg are focussed on giving him the best possible start in life.

27:12

His doctors can’t say yet how badly he’ll be affected, but so far, he’s doing really well.

KATE SMITH:  I don’t regret it, because I just have the most beautiful baby boy.

27:27

Kate 100%

So I don’t regret it at all, and he is amazing, and to us, perfect in every single way, but it was a reckless decision to make. It was a reckless, reckless decision to make, because we felt informed when we weren’t.

27:41

Marina walks with Bridget

Music

27:54

SAMANTHA HAWLEY: For Bridget, the family love that is helping Michael to recover, is missing. And she has just four years before the treatment she’s receiving stops altogether. Marina Boyko is convinced that Bridget needs just one thing to make her future bright.

28:02

MARINA BOYKO:  To find a family that will love her. That is the most important thing.

28:25

Physio works with Bridget

Whether it’s here or in another country, it makes no difference. It’s important they love her, that she feels their love.

28:38

Marina 100%

Personally, for me? To me she is the best, most beautiful, most joyous, most intelligent child that can ever exist. I don’t know how to put it any other way. I’m going to cry now. She is the best. Please don’t film me.  I don’t know what to say. I simply love her. I can’t say any more.

28:48

Credit start over photo of Bridget. See below

29:36

Out point after credits