Baby Trafficking in Indonesia
“When David and Ally first saw Marcus, they knew he was destined to be their son.
“For me it was love at first sight,” said David. Their long adoption journey had come to an end. Months later, the baby from Indonesia was in their arms and the family was ready to start their life together.
But now, years later, they face the possibility of losing Marcus because he is believed to have been trafficked into Singapore.
He is one of at least 20 babies alleged to have been illegally bought in Indonesia for adoption in Singapore in recent years. Nearly two dozen people have been arrested for alleged human trafficking last year and are now on trial in West Java.
This means authorities may have to decide if Marcus and other children, who would by now have spent most of their lives in Singapore, should stay with their adoptive parents or return to their biological parents in Indonesia.
Both countries have yet to state what will happen to the children. For David and Ally, these last few months have been agonising.
The high-profile case has highlighted the enduring problem of child trafficking in Indonesia, fuelled by parents who sell their children.
It has also raised questions over how Singapore – known for its tight controls and meticulous checks – failed to detect the alleged trafficking and even approved some of the adoptions.”
“David and Ally chose a local agency that specialised in arranging adoptions of Indonesian babies.
Weeks later, they were peering at a tiny infant held up to the camera, in a video call arranged by the agency.
“What was so special about him that caught our attention? He’s very smart ! He smiled at us,” recalled David.
The couple paid tens of thousands of dollars, a sum they were told would cover agency fees, legal costs, expenses for the child, and a “token sum” for the biological parents.
Within a few months, Marcus was brought over to Singapore. The moment he was placed in their arms, “we felt nervous, scared, but happy,” said David. “We looked at each other and we said…”
“This is it, this is the real deal,” Ally finished his sentence.
Marcus’s adoption in Singapore was approved swiftly, and the final step was to apply for his citizenship. When immigration officials called them in for a meeting, they were expecting good news.
Instead, their lives were upended. They were told the citizenship application was suspended and that Marcus had possibly been trafficked into Singapore.
“That’s when I burst,” said David, who felt the Singaporean government should have done more in their checks.
“I said to them: ‘Didn’t you do your due diligence? You did all the checks, right? You put us through a tough but necessary process, that is why we abided to it’. They could not answer us.””
“A total of 19 people are now on trial in West Java. They are accused of illegally purchasing the children and transferring them overseas for “exploitation” while forging documents to make them look like legal adoptions.
Under Indonesian law, human trafficking can be defined as paying for a person and transferring that person for the purpose of exploitation.
Indonesia also has strict rules and processes for transnational adoptions, which the defendants are alleged to have bypassed.”
“Prosecutors allege that an Indonesian woman named Lie Siu Luan, who is among those on trial, is the ringleader.
She has admitted supplying babies for adoption to at least four Singaporean contacts who promised to pay at least 18,000 Singapore dollars ($14,000; £10,300) for each baby.
Lie is accused of recruiting people to act as brokers, source babies, take care of the infants, and forge documents.
The brokers were said to have trawled social media looking for parents interested in giving up their babies for adoption. In one case, a broker allegedly posed as a woman looking to adopt a baby to convince a man to give up his newborn son.
Once procured, the infants were taken to a house in Pontianak where they were taken care of by hired nannies. Lie also allegedly hired someone specifically to forge birth certificates and adoption documents.”
Some members of the trafficking ring allegedly pretended to be the babies’ biological parents on paper. Not only were their names listed in the fake documents, they would also get on video calls with prospective adopters.
Prosecutors are asking for jail sentences ranging from five to ten years for the defendants.”
“Separately, the Indonesian branch of Interpol has identified the Singaporean adoption agency that handled the babies. It is the same agency that offered Marcus to David and Ally.”
The agency is still registered as a live business in Singapore
. The BBC tried contacting the agency’s owner but has yet to receive a response.
One pointed out that the children’s adoptions had been approved based on government officers’ recommendations, and that the adoptive parents “are innocent parties that have done every step in accordance with the law”.
But the MSF argued that adoption agencies are responsible for ensuring their babies come from “appropriate sources” and must do rigorous checks, and that adoptive parents must also do their due diligence.
“The MSF declined to answer the BBC’s questions on whether it did any checks on the babies who entered Singapore and how it usually conducts checks on the adoptions of foreign children.
It pointed to previous statements saying it was providing support to the affected parents and there were “some delays” in processing citizenship applications for their children.”
The ministry has also promised to conduct a review of adoption processes.”
“In Indonesia, this case is one of at least seven suspected baby trafficking syndicates investigated by authorities in the last few years. One of these syndicates that operated out of Yogyakarta allegedly handled at least 66 babies.
“Official figures show the number of trafficked young children nearly tripled between 2021 and 2024, from 27 to 70 children. These only account for cases they have tracked, with the actual number likely to be much higher.”
“Ai Rahmayanti, the head of the independent rights body Indonesian Commission for Child Protection, noted that “the state has not built the capacity to provide safe spaces or services” to surrender unwanted children. Facilities like these, known as “baby boxes”, are rare in Indonesia.””
[BBC 7/8/26 by Tessa Wong and Astudestra Ajengrastri]
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