BABY FARMING

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 May 1931, Page 10

BABY FARMING

PRAGUE WOMAN SENTENCED. Rosa Novy, aged 40, and formerly a midwife, was tried at the Assizes at Prague, charged with abduction and deceit, and sentenced to five years’ penal servitude. She carried on a flourishing business with new-born babies, which she sold ,to childless parents who wished to adopt a boy or girl. As a rule, her price amounted to sorrip £6O. Frequently women came to her whose children were illegitimate, and they had to pay her a monthly fee for rearing their babies; thus she made money out of the children in a double way. When the mothers inquired how their babies were getting on, they were told by the prisoner that they had been sent into the country. Thirty-six cases of this kind were proved. Twenty children were returned to their mothers, eight have died, and nothing could be ascertained about the remaining ’eight. Rosa Novy had been carrying on her trade since 1922. In 1927 she had a misadventure, when a mother who wanted to see her child was shown another instead. In this case she was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, but when she was ftee again she • continued her former business without being interfered with by the authorities. —