In the name of fertility

The recent revelations of a minor girl in Erode district of Tamil Nadu of sexual assault and being forced to sell her oocytes have blown the lid off a few contentious issues in fertility treatments. Will the new laws — The Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Regulation) Act and the Surrogacy (Regulation) Act — put a booming fertility sector on track in Tamil Nadu?

On June 2, 2022, a 16-year-old girl walked into the Erode South police station to file a complaint. Her narration of the ordeal she was put through since 2017 went on to kick up a storm in the infertility treatment sector in Tamil Nadu. In four years, she was forced to sell her oocytes eight times to various Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) clinics in Erode, Perundurai, Salem and Hosur with a forged Aadhaar card. She had also been raped multiple times, she said.

The girl’s complaint led investigators to an illegal sale of oocytes for fertility treatments involving hospitals not just in the western belt but as far as Tirupati and Thiruvananthapuram. Four persons, including her mother, are behind bars now. In her complaint, the girl, a Class VIII dropout, said her mother separated from her father when she was three years old and had since been living with A. Syed Ali, 40. She said that after she attained puberty at 12, she was sexually assaulted by Syed Ali in the presence of her mother.

The ordeal did not stop there. The minor girl was taken to hospitals in Erode, Perundurai, Salem and Hosur, where her oocytes were sold eight times since 2017. Her mother and Syed Ali received ₹20,000 for each visit to hospital, while intermediary K. Malathi, 36, received ₹5,000 in commission. Since she was a minor, an Aadhaar card with a different name and address and her date of birth as 1995 was forged for the purpose. A. John, 25, a van driver, prepared the fake Aadhaar card, which was used to commit the offence in hospitals.

The girl said her mother and Syed Ali threatened her not to disclose it to anyone, and she was subjected to frequent sexual assault. In an attempt to escape, the girl left for her friend’s house in Salem on April 25 and lived there for three days. But her mother and Syed Ali came there and forced her to go with them to a hospital. She refused and alerted her relatives, who took her from her friend’s house and approached the police. A case was registered under Sections 5(l), (m), (n) r/w 6, 16 r/w 17 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012, Sections 420, 464, 41, 506 (ii) of the Indian Penal Code and Sections 34 and 35 of The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, and all the four were arrested and lodged in prisons.

A team, led by Additional Superintendent of Police (ADSP) Kanageswari, began inquiries with doctors and staff of two hospitals in the district. Also, documents related to the girl’s admission and discharge, proof of identity submitted by the girl’s mother and medical records related to oocyte donations in the past years were verified. The police are now probing whether Malathi had acted as an intermediary for any women in selling oocytes illegally. The city houses over 10 in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) centres and based on investigations, the role of intermediaries and of hospital staff would be examined, sources said.

Likewise, a six-member team, led by A. Viswanathan, Joint Director of Medical and Rural Health Services, Directorate of Medical and Rural Health Services (DMS), held an inquiry with the victim at the government home in Erode for three hours and recorded her statement. The team visited four hospitals, verified records and held inquiries with the staff.

Dr. Viswanathan told media persons that the girl was also taken to hospitals at Tirupati and Thiruvananthapuram for selling her oocytes and added that they would soon visit these hospitals too.