Midwives among nine arrested over sale of newborns in Baghdad and Dhi Qar

BAGHDAD — Nine people, including licensed midwives, were arrested in two operations against networks accused of selling newborn babies in Baghdad and Dhi Qar, Iraq’s National Security Service said Thursday. Two infants, each a day old, were recovered.

In Dhi Qar, security forces arrested four people in an ambush after they handed over a baby and took payment, the service said. In Baghdad, five people, including licensed midwives, were arrested while allegedly trying to sell another one-day-old infant. The operations followed intelligence gathering and surveillance and were carried out with judicial authorization. The service did not name the suspects, give the sums involved or say anything about the infants’ families. All nine have been handed over for investigation.

In April, the Karkh Criminal Court jailed two women for six years under Article 6 of the Anti-Human Trafficking Law No. 28 of 2012 after one of them, the child’s mother, sold her newborn for 8 million dinars (about $4,800). In September 2025, the National Security Service arrested three women in Diwaniyah, including an unlicensed midwife accused of selling infants, recovering a baby less than a day old along with cash, gold jewelry and medical equipment allegedly used in illegal deliveries.

Iraq’s appeals courts registered 183 human trafficking cases in August, including 67 in Basra and 40 in Baghdad’s Karkh jurisdiction, the Supreme Judicial Council said on Oct. 4. The figures cover all trafficking offenses, not only the sale of children.