Yeo alleged that police and government officials were complicit in the ring. — File pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 26 — Authorities must urgently investigate a baby-selling syndicate exposed in a news programme that showed newborns being graded and traded like chattel, said DAP assemblyman Yeo Bee Yin.

Yeo insisted that the syndicate shown in Al-Jazeera’s 101 East programme could not exist without the collusion of corrupt public officials including from the police and the National Registration Department.

“Those who were recorded by the hidden cameras have repeatedly mentioned giving bribes to government officers.

“Therefore, we call upon the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to immediately investigate the matter and bring the officers who are involved to justice,” she said in a statement.

Yeo also urged Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar to do the same, saying that such an investigation would be better use of police resources than detaining Bersih 2.0 chairman Maria Chin Abdullah under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act.

The Damansara Utama representative also pressed Putrajaya to review existing adoption procedures to discourage such syndicates.

In the programme aired on Thursday, Al-Jazeera journalist Chan Tau Chou exposed the ease with which babies could allegedly be purchased in Malaysia.

The show also alleged that traffickers offered catalogues of pregnant women for customers to browse when shopping for babies.

Posing as potential baby buyers, the Al Jazeera team discovered that traffickers in Malaysia housed as many as 78 pregnant Indonesian women.

The team also gathered video evidence of doctors who openly offer to help procure falsified birth documents for babies who have been bought, allegedly with the help of officials working in the National Registration Department.

* A previous version of the report erroneously identified the Damansara Utama assemblyman as Teo Nie Chiing, and has since been corrected.