The Human Egg Sellers

Up First from NPR

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4.6 • 59K Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

For years, India was thought of as the Wild West of the fertility industry. But in 2021, a new law in India made it illegal for women to sell their eggs or serve as paid surrogates. That law clashed with a growing demand for human eggs within the country. The result: a thriving black market for human eggs.

Today, some of the most marginalized Indian women and girls are supplying reproductive material, often with little compensation and at great personal risk. This week on The Sunday Story, NPR correspondent Diaa Hadid and co-reporter Shweta Desai investigate the supply chain of human eggs in India, from fertility clinics catering to the wealthy to the slums of Mumbai and Chennai. And we meet women who have given up some of the most intimate parts of themselves—to survive.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is the Sunday story from Up First, where we go beyond the news of the
0:05.9	day to bring you one big story. Couples began flocking to India around 2002, because it was one
0:13.9	of the easiest countries where people wanting to have a child could procure eggs and surrogates
0:20.1	at about a third of the price it would be in the
0:22.8	United States.
0:24.7	A multi-million dollar fertility industry boomed and thousands of babies were born of
0:30.8	surrogate mothers to the point where one publication called India, quote, a global baby factory.
0:39.6	That was until 2021, when much of this industry went underground, in part because of a new law
0:47.8	that made it illegal for Indian women to sell their eggs or to be compensated as a surrogate.
0:55.5	So this International Women's Day, we go to India to investigate the underground
1:01.7	market for human eggs that's taken hold in the past several years.
1:07.5	NPR correspondent Dia Hadid and producer Schwedda Desai tracked the story for over nine months, tracing how eggs from impoverished women make their way through a chain of agents and clinics to reach couples who seek them to have a baby.
1:24.1	They crisscrossed India from the southern city of Chennai to the Holy Hindu city of Aranasi,
1:30.7	connecting fertility doctors in high-end clinics to women living in slums.
1:37.8	And just a heads up, this story contains descriptions of physical abuse and invasive medical procedures.
1:49.8	Dia Hadid takes a story after the break. Stay with us.
2:00.7	This message comes from Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe.
2:06.1	You can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with only a few simple taps.
2:11.7	Be smart. Get Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and Cs apply.
2:19.6	We're back with the Sunday story. Here's NPR's Dia Hadid.
2:24.6	It took us months to find the woman we are calling H. She asks that we don't use her name because she fears for her safety.
2:33.4	She works in an industry that is so underground,
	...

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