KATHMANDU, Aug 19: The Supreme Court (SC) on Tuesday issued an order barring the trade of eggs from girls that are allegedly being sold to the infertile couples.
A single bench of SC Justice Tek Prasad Dhungana issued a verdict against the trading of eggs extracted from women. Earlier, Advocates Ankita Tripathi Nirab Gyawali and Dhruba Bhandari had filed a writ at the SC stating that legitimizing the women’s egg trade could risk the exploitation of the underage and adolescent girls.
The apex court in its verdict has asked the authorities concerned not to allow collection, storage and transplant of the women’s egg until the writ will be finalised. Likewise, the court has sought effective government monitoring of the ongoing practice.
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The top court has come up with its verdict at a time the women’s egg trading invited controversies following the incidents in which two fertility clinics in Kathmandu were found illegally collecting eggs from underage girls and selling them to infertile couples for up to Rs 2 million.
Both the clinics were accused of allegedly harvesting eggs from girls under 18 and transferred them to clients seeking assisted reproduction. Each girl was reportedly paid around Rs 15,000, while agents received Rs 40,000 per case.
After the disclosure of the cases, even the government’s minister recently announced allowing the eggs extraction from the women specified age groups. To formalize the issue, the Ministry of Health and Population on Sunday endorsed the Standard for the Operations of Infertility Management Services (IVF) 2025.
The new law allows egg and sperm extraction for the IVF procedures for individuals in the age groups between 20-35 years. It talks about strictly prohibiting the forced or incentivised donation.
