The ‘market’ is located in Alley A1 on Cong
Quynh Street of District 1 in Ho Chi Minh City, where four or five women have
rooms for rent and work as mediators. They introduce customers to those who
sell ovum, sperm and provide rent-to-womb service.
On May
21 Tuoi Tre reporters pretended to be a childless couple coming to buy ovum in
the alley, where a middle-aged woman struck up a conversation with them and
told them to rent a room from mediator Ngoc. After taking them to their room
Ngoc said she would help find ovum.
The
following morning, she told them to come to meet an ovum seller. However, they
waited for an hour but the seller did not show up. Ngoc made a phone call and
was told that that person was busy and then made another call.
Ten
minutes later a woman showed up. Her name was Nhi and she already has two
children. “I have to sell ova because of my disadvantaged condition,” she said
and demanded VND14-15 million (US$673 – 721) for her work.
Upon
realizing that the customers were hesitating, Ngoc said she would introduce
another woman, who is a maid. However, they didn’t want the egg cell of a maid.
Ngoc
then introduced a 19-year-old girl named Vu Thien An, who sells vermicelli and
shellfish soup on Cong Quynh Street. Ngoc priced that girl’s ovum at a higher
rate of VND15-16 million, since she is young.
Rent-a-womb
service available
“You
should find a surrogate. It is rather difficult but I will help to find someone
from the countryside,” Ngoc told the ‘couple’. She said that the price will be
decided by the service buyer and provider.
“You
must keep this rent-a-womb service secret as it is prohibited by law,” she
said. “The surrogate mother must pretend to be your husband’s wife to go
through procedures at the hospital. After she is pregnant, you should take her
home or hire a room for her to stay and take care of her until she gives
birth,” she advised, and provided her cell phone number so that the purchasers
could call her.
Sperm trade tricks
Upon
meeting customers who want to buy sperm in the alley, a fat woman named Thao
said, “I am knowledgeable about the sperm trade, I will help you.”
She
introduced a young man who has a wife and two children and needs money. The
price was VND10 million. Thao revealed that if the purchasers wanted sperm from
a person they know, they should take him to a Doctor C to do that.
Thao
advertised another trick, which is to use fake Identity card to make the sperm
seller the husband of the wife. It would help them take sperm from the seller
easily at the hospital or any surgery center.
Customers
would provide Thao the husband’s name, age and address and pay VND2 million
(US$96) to have a fake ID card made.
Another
mediator named Nga, located in the same alley, introduced Chau, a 33 year old
sperm seller from District 8. When the customers asked how to get sperm from
that man, Thao guided them to the surgery center of Doctor C.
“When
the doctor gives your husband a small bottle for his sperm and sends him to a
restroom, you should propose to do that in a nearby hotel and bring the bottle
to my house so that Chau can give me his sperm,” she said.
Students sell sperm
There
is also an association of students specializing in selling sperm. They publicly
pasted an advertisement piece on the wall of the infertility department in Tu
Du Obstetric Hospital.
Tuoi
Tre dialed the cell phone number on the advertisement piece and met the
association administrator Thuong, who studying a master’s degree at a
university in the city.
According
to him, the association has over 30 members who are students of universities
and colleges in the city. Customers will pay VND10 million ($480) a trade and
could take sperm from a student in any way they want until they have pregnancy.
“These
students are in a disadvantaged situation, they don’t drink or smoke. We have
traded many times. It is completely secret and safe,” Thuong advertised.
Unauthorized surgery centers perform
insemination
Some
private surgery centers in Ho Chi Minh City have carried out intrauterine
insemination (IUI), in which sperm is put into the womb of a woman, even though
they are not licensed to do so.
Thao, a
mediator in alley A1 of Cong Quynh Street in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1,
said that couples can treat infertility at Tu Du Obstetric Hospital, or at
private surgery centers.
Treatment
in the surgery centers is more expensive, but faster. Sometimes it takes
several months to get such a procedure at a hospital, where doctors usually
make numerous appointments before conducting an IUI.
Thao
introduced customers to the surgery center of Doctor Le Tan Canh, who works at
the Tu Du Hospital. “If you are in good health and have enough money, doctors
will operate on you immediately,” she said.
“If you
want sperm from a person you are acquainted with instead of from the sperm bank
in the hospital, take that person to the surgery center and give the doctor a
certain amount of money,” she advised.
Another
mediator named Nga said that Doctor Canh will perform an IUI, while adding that
some couples in the alley have been treated at his center and are already
pregnant.
The
surgery center of Doctor Canh is located in the second floor of a house on Cong
Quynh Street. It comprises of two rooms, with the larger one set up for Canh to
work in, while the other is for those who have undergone an IUI to lie down.
The center was found full of pregnant women and infertile couples on May 27.
Thuy
from District 8, who is in the third month of pregnancy thanks to IUI
treatment, said “Doctor Canh is very skillful. It is faster to get the
procedure here than in the hospital, where a lot of paperwork is usually
required.”
Canh
told Tuoi Tre reporters, who were pretending to be a childless couple, that his
center could put sperm into a uterus, adding that they should bring health test
results next time for him to consider, and he would do the IUI in an ovulation
period.
Several
women have successfully treated infertility at Canh’s center. After getting a
health test, the wife will be injected to stimulate ovulation. When it is time
to take sperm, the husband or the sperm seller will give sperm at the center’s
restroom or a nearby hotel.
Oanh, a
nurse at the center, says couples are not required to present marriage
certificates there.
At
another surgery center located on Le Van Si Street in District 3, with its
director Nguyen Hoang Tuan, deputy head of the Tu Du Hospital’s fertility
department A, the price to place sperm into a uterus swings from VND5-7 million
(US$238 - 334).
A woman
from Go Vap District, who had gone through an IUI half an hour earlier, said
“My husband and I went to a nearby hotel to get sperm and the center didn’t
check my husband’s health or ask us to present a marriage certificate.”
On May
31, doctors Nguyen Hoang Tuan and Le Tan Canh told Tuoi Tre that they are not
licensed to perform an IUI, but they have done so nonetheless.
Tuan
explained, “Some women ovulate in the evening when the hospital is closed.
Patients cannot wait so I take their sperm from the hospital to my surgery
center.”
Canh
added that “It is very difficult to wait for an ovulation period. As a result,
in some cases I have to break the hospital’s regulations to place sperm into
the patients’ wombs to increase the pregnancy ratio and release mental pressure
on them.”
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