Children for sale

There seems to be an urgent need to review the law authorising the establishment of charity homes especially in Imo and Abia states. In the two states, if reports in recent times in newspapers are a measure, there is a prevalence of baby factories, masquerading as charity homes. So, the governments in the two states, should take legal and social steps, to stem the ugly development. Perhaps, the first step should be, a law criminalising the turning of charity homes, into a baby vending factory.

The picture of 14 expectant girls, rescued last week, from one so called Mma Charity Home, at Umumkpe Village, in Isiala Ngwa South local council area of Abia State, is a common feature in recent years. The report that the parents of the teenagers are not aware that their teenage girls are somewhere trying to ‘earn’ between N300-N350 thousand, (depending on the sex of the baby) by getting pregnant and selling their unwanted baby, rankles. How can parents not know where their wards are for at least nine months?

After recklessly wasting their youthful ages, selling the fruits of their womb, the girls may end up trying to buy babies when they get married, and the wages of their sins become infertility. Of course, while infertility may be a biological challenge, which deserves sympathy, it could become the deserved punishment, for those who had traded on their fertility earlier in their lives. So, the pandemic of teenagers producing babies for sale, for few pieces of naira, deserves the attention of state and local governments, in the southeast states.

Perhaps, there may be the need to commission a survey on the psychological make-up of the teenagers who have engaged in that infamy, to understand what really drives them. Is it merely their love for the money they would be paid, or a manifestation of parental and societal neglect, or a form of psychotic disorder or merely disoriented moral values? Of note, under the criminal code, there are laws to punish those who procure underage persons for defilement or prostitution or provide abode for such; but the code did not contemplate prostituting pregnancy for money.

‘It is also important that moral institutions, like churches, rise up to the new challenge facing the society. Like Mary Slessor, the famous Scottish missionary, who fought to eradicate the killing of twins, new champions should rise up to fight the scourge of prostituting pregnancy, with the intent to sell the infants’

To make matters worse, the criminal code did not contemplate that persons like Mrs Mma Achumba, who run the ‘charity home’, would set up a charity home, and use it to aid underage girls, to trade in pregnancy and new babies. Of course, if a charge is preferred against Mrs Achumba, under section 219 of the criminal code, which provides punishment for an owner or occupier, who permits the use of his premises for the defilement of underage girls, such charge may be difficult to prove.

While some of such charity homes, may allow the impregnating sessions to take place within their premises, akin to breeding of animals, it would be easy for their owners to fend off the charge of being a brothel, and insist that they are charity homes who merely provide succour for teenagers who are pregnant; even when their main intent is breeding and selling babies at infancy. So, there is need for a new law to catch up with the likes of Mrs Achumba, and those who work with them.

As bizarre as it may sound, could Mrs Achumba and her ilk, be said to be engaged in child labour, which is prohibited by the Labour Act? Well maybe it is child labour, figuratively and literally speaking. For truly, while it may be a dishonourable contract, there is the likelihood that the teenage girls operate under an unenforceable contract that there are to be catered for while they are pregnant, and paid the agreed fees, at the birth and sale of their child.

Of note, the Labour Act, prohibits child labour. Section 9(3) of the act provides: “Except in the case of a contract of apprenticeship, no person under the age of sixteen years shall be capable of entering into a contract of employment under this Act.” Section 59 of the Act, which deals with the kind of work and the working period a young person can be engaged for, could not have contemplated the type of work, Mma Charity Home and their type, provide for the young girls.

Read Also: NGO sensitises communities on dangers of travelling

Again the Labour Act, in section 60, prohibits the employment of young persons during the night; and most likely, the sweating job usually takes place during the night. But regardless of what the parties may have agreed, a contract to breed children for sale, is unenforceable; if for no reason, for being reprehensible to public morals. Talking seriously, except the states have domesticated Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Law, and Child Rights Act, which will be applicable to punish the botched sale of the twins harvested from a 25-year old Onunwa Grace Nwachukwu, from Imo State, there may be no appropriate laws, to deal with the challenge.

So, if the laws to punish Mrs Achumba, for converting a charity home, to a centre for warehousing pregnant young women, with the intent to subsequently sell their babies are not there, she may just suffer some indignities for a while, after which she goes home, to enjoy the loot from her nefarious trade. Of note, with the stated age of Mrs Nwachukwu, whose community’s youths’ protest for her shameful conduct, triggered the investigation, it may even be wrong to call the girls engaged in the bizarre trade, young persons as defined by our laws.

Perhaps if the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act to Provide Measurers against Trafficking and for other related Matters has local variants in the concerned states, the equivalent of section 13(4)(b) may provide the states, the opportunity to punish those involved, in the botched sale. The section provides: “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation, shall be considered trafficking in persons even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in the definition of trafficking in persons in this Act.”

It is also important that moral institutions, like churches, rise up to the new challenge facing the society. Like Mary Slessor, the famous Scottish missionary, who fought to eradicate the killing of twins, new champions should rise up to fight the scourge of prostituting pregnancy, with the intent to sell the infants. Such persons or bodies, should train their searchlight on persons who run Charity Homes, and help alert security agencies, whenever there is a gathering of pregnant girls, like vultures.

Parents should also wake up to the vocation of parenting, and take responsibility for the upbringing of their children. Those involved, must also know that such immoral behaviour, will hunt them forever.