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Police rescued a 27-day old baby from an alleged human trafficking case about 500 miles north of São Paulo, Brazil, where the mother was reportedly trying to sell the baby to pay for rent and cooking classes.
The woman’s identity has not yet been disclosed, but authorities report that four individuals, including the mother, were arrested at the scene.
The mother’s boyfriend, who was not the child’s father, allegedly arranged to sell the newborn to a woman who owned an ice cream shop in the area. The mother also reportedly suffered from postpartum depression.
It was not confirmed what exactly the buyer planned to do with the child. Denying the sale to authorities, the woman claimed she was babysitting when authorities came to take custody of the child.
Brazilian news outlet G1 gained access to a series of text messages between the buyer and the mother’s boyfriend.
“Find a ‘big-breasted’ woman to give me the child,’ the businesswoman wrote. ‘If it’s a boy, even better. If it’s black, even better,” she wrote.
Investigators later found that the woman had signed up to adopt through the National Adoption Registry but were yet to be put on a waiting list.
“The mother confessed. She told the whole story that they actually offered her a sum of money to hand over the baby because with the money she was going to pay the rent in the other place where she was going to live and she was going to take a cooking course,” Goiás Civil Police Chief Humberto Teófilo told G1.
After the four were arrested and charged with human trafficking, the child was placed in custody of Child Protective Services and was set to be put up for adoption if no family members come forward.
“He was very hungry. He drank a whole [three ounce] bottle, a very delicate situation,” stated Paulo Wanderson, a caretaker at the shelter the child is staying at.
The four accused have been expected to appear in court the following Monday, but no updates have been provided on the situation.
Brazil ranked in the 2nd tier in last year’s human trafficking report, meaning that while they do not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, they are making significant efforts to do so.
With efforts in full swing, the cases of human trafficking jumped from 690 prosecutions in 2022 to 1,472 in 2023.
Officials and citizens across Brazil are working to spread awareness about the crimes of human trafficking. On World Day against Trafficking, municipal and state governments hosted workshops, trainings, performances, and roundtable discussions in order to spread awareness about the dangers of trafficking.
In addition to the widespread issue of human trafficking, Brazil faces a significant problem with slave labor, which the government has been taking extra measures to prevent.