South African Egg Donor Sent to India, Realizes Agency is Scamming Recipients

Martene is a South African egg donor and a member of We Are Egg Donors. She is an active egg donor who has traveled internationally for her egg donations. While the recent cycles have been smooth and positive, her first cycle was a different story.

This is the fourth story featured in our series Crossing Borders, in which we interview women who have traveled internationally to donate their eggs. Crossing Borders aims to illuminate the human experiences behind the complex and wide-varying laws that govern egg donation practices.

Martene

Martene: Let me start off by saying when I was recruited for the first time to become an egg donor, it wasn’t about the money. South African egg donors can be paid between 1200 and 2700 US dollars. Given everything that happened on this trip, the compensation didn’t even begin to cover everything I went through. I was only paid $1200.

I applied to be an egg donor in June 2012, when I had just turned 23 and my daughter was ten months...