Despite the crackdown by security agents, operators of ‘baby factories’ are still having a field day, writes DAMOLA KOLA DARE
MY friend called me to say that someone was looking for house help. I borrowed money and found myself in Lagos the next day. I was already in Lagos before I realised there was no house maid job. I was taken to a ‘madam’ who told me I have to hustle. Hustling means sleeping with men of different shapes and sizes, in exchange for a roof over my head,” she said.
By the time she slept with seven men she became pregnant.
“I was shocked that the story that got me downcast was received with joy. I was told that after delivery, I would be paid handsomely and that if I decided to leave thereafter (after delivery), I could. My pregnancy is in its second trimester,” she added.
She was one of the women arrested by the police after a ‘baby factory, was ‘uprooted’.
One of the pregnant rescued women, a widow, known as Uche, admitted she planned selling her baby after delivery. Her reason was because she needed to fend for her three children, who have become her burden since the demise of her husband some years ago.
She claimed she got pregnant for her boyfriend, who denied being responsible, but didn’t want the baby to add to her woes, hence she contacted a friend who decided to “help”, her.
Another victim, who claimed she was impregnated by her boyfriend in her village, said the stigma of being pregnant outside marriage made her to come to Lagos with the intention of giving birth and then sell the baby before returning to the village.
Enter “Baby factory”
“Baby Factories” are ‘maternity’ homes’, where pregnant teenage girls and women are delivered of their babies, who are eventually taken from their mothers and put up for sale.
Most of these centres, it was gathered, masquerade either as hospitals, clinics, maternity homes, or orphanages.
The first known case of baby factory, was in 2006, by UNESCO, and ever since it has become prevalent. It has now become common place as young girls and women have now become vulnerable to such illegal maternal treatment as a result of poverty.
Experts may continue to debate whether activities of these homes, which are said to be found in many of the nation’s urban centres, may have had an impact on the nation’s birth rate statistics, regarded as one of the highest birth rates in the world. On the average, a woman has the capacity to give birth to five-six kids in her life. According to another statistics, Nigeria accounts for over seven million new births every year, and 37 births per 1000 citizens. Thus, Nigeria actively contributes to the growth of world population with the aforementioned figures.
UN child right
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC or UNCRC), is a human rights treaty that sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The Convention notes that a child is any human under the age of eighteen, unless the age of majority has been attained earlier under national legislation.
Nations that approve this convention are bound by international law.
Interestingly, compliance is monitored by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, which comprised of members from different countries around the world. Once a year, the Committee forwards a report to the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, which also hears a statement from the CRC Chair, after which the Assembly adopts a resolution on the rights of the child.
Governments of countries that have ratified the Convention are mandated to not report but appear before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child periodically for assessment on their progress as regards their advancement in the implementation of the Convention and the status of child rights in their country.
Also, Article 5 of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, enjoins member states to guide against practices that make human beings suffer sexual and labour exploitation. The country became a signatory in December, 2000.
Despite Nigeria signing in 2000 and ratifying in 2010, the Optional Protocol put forward by the UN General Assembly that criminalises the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, the country is still replete with illegal child-selling “factories’.
‘Baby factories’ discoveries
The Lagos State Police had on September 19, 2019 busted a criminal child-selling syndicate in Lagos after the discovery of another of such and rescuing a-week-old baby in Isheri-Osun, a Lagos suburb. They raided four different areas in Ikotun and rescued 19 young pregnant girls between ages 15 and 28. They were reportedly camped to make babies and upon delivery would be stripped of the babies. Also rescued were four babies.
According to the police, majority of the women were tricked to Lagos as they were promised domestic jobs before being abducted and subsequently impregnated.
The victims were said to have been brought from Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Abia, Anambra and Imo states.
Barely a month after, the Police, on October 2, discovered another illegal maternity centre where young girls were impregnated and compelled to give birth to babies who were later sold.
The building was discovered in the Isolo area of the state after policemen found seven pregnant women and girls, who had fled the centre walking aimlessly around Cele Bus Stop with a two-year-old girl among them.
A police source said the home was busted following a tip-off. “We got a tip-off that about seven pregnant women were loitering at the bus stop and our men went there to pick them up.”
Continuing he said: “After interrogating them, the women said they were among 20 other expectant mothers in the centre and all had escaped.”
He added that the seven, who are between the ages of 13 and 27, had been found while the whereabouts of the remaining 13 are unknown.
Recently, a similar centre was bursted in Imo State, which the owner calls a “ministry”. It could pass for a miracle pregnancy centre where supposedly barren women after converging weekly for special prayers get “fruit of the womb”. Apart from swindling unsuspecting victims of their hard earned money on the assurance of delivering them from barrenness and making them pregnant, they also operate a “baby factory”. One of the victims, who was conned, said initially she thought she was pregnant because of the changes in her body, only for a scan to show that no foetus was in her belly.
Also baffling is the impunity with which the owner operates. The syndicate is said to have engaged in the illicit trade without being called to question by community leaders and those in authority.
Also last year, policemen and officials of the Ministry of Women Affairs stormed another baby factory at Igando area of Lagos State where it rescued hunger-stricken children and pregnant women at the centre that also operated an illegal crèche.
The trail of culprits
Law enforcement agents and security operatives, over the years, have always rescued young teenage girls camped in buildings disguised as maternity centres or clinics and nabbed suspects connected with illegal trade syndicates who deal in selling babies, yet there seems to be no end in sight as the menace of “baby factories” continues to be increasingly worrisome.
However, a police source, who described the Isolo ‘Baby Factory; as a “detention centre”, said the police are right on the trail of those behind what he described as “inhuman and heinous crime”.
Two suspects, however, have been arrested in connection with the incident. They are Happiness Ukwuoma, aged 40 and a 54-year-old Sherifat Ipeya, believed to have acted as nurses for the pregnant girls and women.
Also fingered in the crime are the lynchpin of the gang, known as Madam Oluchi, who it was gathered brought young girls from the Southeast and was said to have absconded when the police foiled their ‘business’.
- To be continued tomorrow
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