Lucia’s story is personal yet symbolic of hundreds of women living in slum communities in Manila’s vast expanse and in the Philippine provinces beyond, where the underground newborn trade is thriving.

Across Southeast Asia, hundreds of newborn babies are being sold, both on- and offline for as little as 300 pesos (about $6). In the Philippines, arguably the social media capital of the world, babies are sold on Instagram, Facebook, and other channels, including outside public hospitals and from Manila’s slums, where six out of 10 women have either sold or know someone who has sold a baby, according to women in slum neighborhoods. The majority of these women are living well below the poverty line.

The Philippines is devoutly Catholic, with a culture that encourages large families; adoption is heavily stigmatized. The nation’s Catholic Church also opposes birth control, with the constitution vowing to protect the “life of the unborn from conception.” Abortion remains illegal.

The Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Act, providing greater access to free family planning, was passed in 2012. However, after a protracted tug-of-war between church and state, the government’s budget for contraceptives was axed in 2016. The law’s implementation was further curtailed with a Supreme Court case challenging its constitutionality and a Catholic organization obtaining a restraining order against contraceptive products, which was lifted only last year.

In the Philippines, babies are sold on Instagram, Facebook, and other channels, including outside public hospitals and from Manila’s slums, where six out of 10 women have either sold or know someone who has sold a baby.

In the Philippines, an estimated 1,000 women die every year due to illegal backstreet abortions and black-market pills. An illegal abortion cocktail known as “pampa regla” can be purchased for 200 pesos (about $3) outside Quiapo, one of Manila’s most exalted churches. Vendors promise that the concoction can cause even a one-month-old human embryo to bleed out with menstruation.

The alternative is an adoption system that slum dwellers feel is discriminatory and stacked against them. Rumors of expensive and discriminatory adoption practices are rife in these neighborhoods. “You have to pay lots of fees, and they think all the mothers from Tondo are on drugs and so the babies will be addicted and they refuse us,” Lucia says.

The adoption system in the Philippines is tedious, multilayered, and highly bureaucratic; the process often takes years. “There are prospective parents who would rather buy a child than go through the inconvenience of an excessive DSWD [Department of Social Welfare and Development] adoption, which would not even be able to guarantee positive results,” says Eric Mallonga, a lawyer and former Inter-County Adoption Board (ICAB) member.

Aimee Torrefranca-Neri, undersecretary for operations at the DSWD, says, “The personal act of the biological parents to sell their child is not brought about by the system.” Critics, however, argue that the lengthy processes lead mothers and adopting couples to seek alternate options.

The sheer scale and population of Manila’s slums offer a safe haven for dealers to thrive in anonymity, working in neighborhoods where babies can be born, go missing, and never be found.

Outside Manila’s hospitals, baby agents organize deals initiated by doctors from inside the hospital walls. It is a booming business, with agents and doctors taking the bigger cut. The lack of security guards or CCTV systems means deals are rarely recorded.

Dealers are reassured that the authorities don’t have any idea of the scale of the sale of babies. “We are discreet and communicate through SMS. No need for background identification of each other. It’s just an open secret,” says Lynn, a dealer working in Navotas. Others, who chose not to go on record, say the authorities turn a blind eye: “They know that in our society, this is normal. They can’t see, they can’t hear, and if they do, they shut their mouth.”

With a lack of police supervision and action against the newborn baby trade, those like Lucia, who got pregnant and cannot raise their children, take a risk out of desperation.