Egyptian woman discovers she was sold by a nurse shortly after birth

 

Nurse allegedly sells baby for flat and cash, bride-to-be discovers truth 20 years later

Woman says she learned she was illegally handed to another family as an infant

Last updated: July 07, 2026 | 21:26

Huda Ata, Special to Gulf News

2 MIN READ

A nurse at a hospital in Egypt's Dakahlia Governorate handed over the newborn in exchange for a flat and a sum of money.

Dubai: What should have been the happiest chapter of a young Egyptian woman's life instead uncovered an alleged human trafficking case dating back nearly two decades, after her family unexpectedly refused to allow her to marry.

The woman, identified only as Nour, had accepted a marriage proposal when the family that raised her reportedly rejected the match without explanation, despite there being no apparent objections to the groom.

The refusal prompted a relative to intervene, revealing a secret that would upend Nour's life. According to her account, the relative told her that the people she had believed were her parents were not her biological family.

Shocked by the revelation, Nour confronted the woman she had known as her mother. After initially denying the claim, the woman allegedly admitted that she had acquired the infant through an illegal arrangement in 2006 after struggling with infertility.

According to the alleged confession, a nurse at a hospital in Egypt's Dakahlia Governorate handed over the newborn in exchange for a flat and a sum of money. The child was then allegedly registered under the name of the woman's husband using forged records.

Determined to uncover her origins, Nour launched her own search and eventually located the nurse said to have been involved in the transaction.

She said the nurse admitted details of the alleged deal during a confrontation. However, before revealing the identity of Nour's biological family, the nurse reportedly fled the country, cutting off what Nour described as her only remaining lead.

Now abandoned by the family that raised her, Nour said she is supported only by her husband as she continues her search for her biological parents.

"I don't want money or an inheritance," she said in an emotional appeal that has circulated widely on social media. "All I want is to hug my real mother, know my roots, and find out whether my family has been looking for me."

Italy in Shock as Mayor, Medics & Others Caught Brainwashing Kids to Sell Them into Foster Care

Many of them sold to some very disturbing people

© gettyimages

Italians are reeling from the revelation that a crime ring, which includes a mayor, doctors and social workers, had been brainwashing children to say their parents abused them, so as to easily sell them on to foster families.

So far eighteen people, including the mayor of the town of Bibbiano, near Reggio Emilia in northern Italy, have been arrested.

They were suspected of working together to brainwash the kids, who were taken from disadvantaged families under false pretexts, into believing they’d been abused at home. This was later used as a justification to seize the children and, basically, to sell them to foster parents at a high price.

The psychologists at the Hansel and Gretel Association in the town of Moncalieri, near Turin, have used a variety of bizarre techniques to achieve their sinister goal.

They relied on persuasion to make their victims believe that their parents hurt and sexually abused them; showed fake, childlike drawings with added sexual details and even enacted plays, dressing up in scary masks to represent their moms and dads as being vile and dangerous.

The police said the children were also subjected to small electric shocks, referred to as “the little memory machine” by the shrinks.

An affected girl told La Repubblica paper that when she said that she couldn’t remember and was asking why she couldn’t see her dad anymore, she was told: “But don’t you remember you said you didn’t want to see him? I remember this.”

The psychologist then explained: “Yes, you said you didn’t want to see him because you were afraid that he would hurt you… that he might seek vengeance… or take you away. Do you remember the fear you felt? Do you remember now?”

But the child insisted that she couldn’t remember anything of the sort and that she cried over being separated from her father.

The police also said that they discovered dozens of letters and gifts from biological parents, which the perpetrators had never passed on to the kids.

Foster Carers a Nightmare

The people to whom the boys and girls were handed over reportedly included sex shop owners, persons with psychological disorders and parents whose children had committed suicide. It was under this ‘foster care’ that at least two of the victims suffered actual sexual abuse, according to reports.

The separation from their parents and the psychological torture have taken a heavy toll on the affected kids, with some losing hope for a future and resorting to self-harm.

The criminal organization was busted by police as part of an operation codenamed “Angels and Demons,” which was launched in late summer 2018 after an unnaturally high number of child sex abuse reports were spotted as coming from an area in the Reggio Emilia province.

Those arrested, as well as 27 others under investigation, have been charged with mistreatment of minors, violence, abuse of office, fraud and falsifying public records.

Italian PM Giuseppe Conte called the crime “frightening and shocking”, while Minister for Families and Disabilities, Lorenzo Fontana, described it as a “shockingly serious” development and promised a probe into the country’s adoption system.

Italians on the internet said they were praying for the estimated 30 kids who were affected, and demanded an appropriate punishment for the wrongdoers, whom they branded as “animals.”

“Forgive us for what was done to you, dear children. You are our future. I believe in the fairness of our judicial system,” one of the users wrote.

Only 10 y/o: Yemen Sees Spike in Parents Marrying Off Young Daughters for Cash

 40,000 girls are coerced into becoming child brides every single day - 7600 of which are under the age of 15.

10 y/o Mlak can't go to school or play outside

for fear of being kidnapped and sold by her father

Extremely young girls are paying the price for Yemen's brutal civil war, being married off by their own families, which are struggling to make ends meet. RT spoke to a mother who managed to save her 10-year-old daughter from becoming a child bride.

A woman by the name of Nasrine told RT that her 10-year-old daughter Mlak has already been engaged to an elderly man, a deal which was apparently arranged by the girl’s father against the Nasrine’s will. The mother and daughter were able to receive help from the Yemen Women’s Union, and the deal did not go through.

However, Nasrine says she is still worried for her daughter, fearing the father will one day kidnap her in another attempt to sell her as a child bride.

“I'm totally against the idea of her marrying so young. It doesn't matter who the man is, she's just a child and should go to school. She's only 10, she wouldn't survive marriage,” Nasrine told RT.

“I don't know what will happen to us, but my only goal is my daughter's education. She hasn't been going to school for two years, because I'm afraid that one day her father will kidnap her and marry her off. Because of that, she has lost the chance to play and learn,” she continued.

Early marriage has become “alarmingly widespread” in war-struck Yemen, UNICEF said in March, as cited by AP. 

The organization conducted a survey in six provinces in September. Some 72 percent of women said they were married by the time they were 18, and 44 percent were married by age 15. Before the war, similar surveys 50 percent would say they were married before 18, UNICEF says.

Hayat al-Kinai, an activist from the Yemen Women's Union who helped Nasrine and Mlak, told RT that the country is now seeing “many stories on early marriage.”

She said that even if mothers do not want to marry their daughters, they feel they are left with little choice.

“The poverty is very, very high, and so they accept to marry their daughters,” she said.

Nasrine, mother of 10-year-old Mlak, saved from being married off for money, speaks to RT. / RT

Meanwhile, UNICEF regional director Geert Cappelaere told RT that the problems that exist in Yemen “do not have to be there.”

“These problems are of human making, and the main issue is that Yemen is at war, and so the simple way of stopping all of this is stopping the conflict, is investing back in a country that requires development, investing in the education of children, investing in the health of the children,” he said.

“What is today invested in fighting each other needs to be invested into the most vulnerable Yemenis, the boys and girls of Yemen.”

However, the war in Yemen shows no signs of stopping, with the Saudi-led coalition's campaign in its third year.

The Saudi-led coalition, backed by the US, launched an aerial campaign against Shiite Houthi rebels in March 2015, and later launched a ground operation. The coalition is allied to Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia when the Houthis took power in Yemen.

A senior UN official estimated in January that the death toll in Yemen's conflict had exceeded 10,000 people, including 4,000 civilians. Some 17 million people in the war-torn country are also at imminent risk of famine, according to UN estimates. 

The coalition has long been accused of civilian casualties, with a September report by the Yemen Data Project concluding that one-third of Saudi airstrikes hit hospitals, schools, and other civilian targets. Those figures were denounced as “vastly exaggerated” by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, who spoke to the Guardian.

Saudi Arabia has denied targeting innocent Yemenis, instead accusing the Houthis of using civilian installations to conceal weapons and launch missile attacks against Riyadh with help from Iran – claims which Tehran denies.

Meanwhile, the US continues to support Saudi Arabia, with President Donald Trump striking an arms deal with Riyadh last month which totaled $350 billion. The agreement is said to be aimed at bolstering security “in the face of Iranian threats.”

Mlak is not the first face of the 'child bride' problem in Yemen; there was Rawan who died most horribly on her wedding night when she was just 8 years old.

Her tragic story is found here.

and then there is Nada. Nada escaped her parents plot to marry her off by running away with an uncle. The video she made while on the run is gripping and gut-wrenching.

Her video and story can be viewed here.

For more info on child brides please see:

The Incredible Truth about Child Brides

Why Child Brides Will Always Be with Us

Yemen consists of about 25m people of which between 25,000 and 40,000 are Christians, about 50 are Jews and the remainder are Muslim - 65% Sunni and 35% Shia. The Houthis who swept into power in Sana'a in Sept 2014 are Shia and are, apparently, backed by Iran. The Saudis support Sunni forces including the ousted president Abd Rubbah Mansur Hadi.