20 Thousand Drams and Sweets: Mother Abandons Newborn for Payment

The Armenian Investigative Committee's Main Department for Particularly Important Cases has completed an investigation into the case of a Kotayk Province resident who, for monetary gain, attempted to sell her newborn through the organization of on-call pediatricians at a medical center.

According to the evidence obtained during the investigation, it has been established that on March 25, 2017, a resident of Kotayk gave birth to a male child. Lacking sufficient means to care for the child's needs, she decided to either leave the baby at the hospital or give him up for adoption.

The on-call pediatrician at the medical center learned of this and decided to arrange for the child's care to be taken on by her cousin's daughter. An agreement was reached between the mother and the pediatrician for the child's custody under the condition of receiving compensation.

After obtaining the mother's consent, the pediatrician organized a meeting between the biological mother and the couple who intended to adopt the baby, during which an agreement was made to take care of the newborn in exchange for a specific compensation. This was part of an intentional act of selling the child, with the mother agreeing to the sale.

After obtaining the birth certificate from the Civil Status Registration Agency's Armavir territorial subdivision, the husband and wife transferred 20,000 AMD and over 20,000 AMD worth of sweets to the mother through the pediatrician.

Subsequently, to establish paternity, the husband of the pediatrician's cousin and the biological mother jointly went to the Civil Status Registration Agency's Abovyan territorial subdivision. They were warned about the responsibility for providing false information to the agency and intentionally provided obviously false information claiming to be the child's biological father. They submitted a request for a