AI Summary
5 min read🎙️ The Voices & The Context
- The Format: Investigative narrative story, blending on-the-ground reporting, interviews, and analysis into a single extended feature.
- The Key Players:
- Dia Hadid: NPR India correspondent who leads the reporting, tracking sources over nine months across cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and Varanasi.
- Shweta Desai: Co-reporter and producer, handling key interviews and on-site work with women in slums and cafes.
- Aisha Roscoe: Host of NPR's Up First Sunday Story, framing the episode with context on International Women's Day.
- Anonymous sources dominate: egg sellers like H and Abhirami, agents like Ruby, shadowy fertility brokers, doctors, and academics like Vrinda Marwah and Prabha Kotiswaran.
- The Vibe: Intense and sobering, with a tone of urgency exposing exploitation; moments of raw emotion mix with journalistic grit, evoking outrage over systemic abuse.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: India's Underground Egg Market**
- 2 (03:36) **H's Story: Selling Eggs for Survival**
- 3 (06:20) **Rising Demand and Premium Donors**
- 4 (10:13) **Abhirami's Experience in Chennai Slum**
- 5 (15:37) **2021 ART Law and Its Failures**
- 6 (17:35) **Exploitation of Minors and Oversight Gaps**
- 7 (22:02) **Role of Agents and Middlemen**
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
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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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.
To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
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