In recent times, increasing number of teenage girls and young women have been used by child traffickers, who often pose as care givers, as baby making machines for pecuniary benefits. In this report PAUL OKAH writes on the menace and efforts to stem the tide.
It is no longer news that child traffickers are on the prowl in Nigeria. The ugly phenomenon, which reared its head more than 20 years ago, appears to be thriving in many major cities including Lagos, Abuja, Enugu, Calabar, and Onitsha.
While security agencies have continuously busted operations of some of these baby factories as they have come to be known, an end to the trend, however, appears not to be in sight as more keep springing in different part of the country even in the heart of the city.
These baby factories are often operated in the guise of maternity centres, orphanages and homes for the less privileged and street kids. The operators basically lure gullible young girls and women, mostly those who get pregnant out of wedlock; provide shelter and pre-natal care for them and in the process convince them to give them up immediately after they are delivered babies are delivered of the babies. Blueprint Weekend checks also revealed that children are usually sold to ready buyers and the girls, who more often than not are stranded, continue to reside in the homes. While some of the girls are involved in the transactions, others are given the impression that the children were being adopted to give them opportunity to continue their education and make something of their lives.
However, who enter willing into contract with the operators are said to be thrilled with money they make from selling their babies often become scouts and recruit her friends into the lucrative business. This is as baby boys are said to be more in demand and also sold at a higher price than the girl-child.
Investigations further indicate that the baby factories, which have many young girls residing in the same premises, also have young, virile men, who pose as staff and relatives of the operators. Some of these men have been found to start relationships with the girls with the aim of impregnating them to have more children for their teeming clients, while others rape the girls all in the bid to impregnate them.
There are usually doctors and nurses involved in this illicit trade to offer medical services to the pregnant women as well as deliver them of the babies when they are due.
Unseen hands
Trafficking in persons in Nigeria has been largely targeted at adults and children, particularly women and girls. Of growing concern, however, is the recent emergence and growth of sophisticated and syndicated groups involved in baby ‘factories’ and trafficking in Nigeria.
Sometimes, many unsuspecting children are handpicked from rural communities by a “benefactor”, usually a close relative, living in the city, who would promise greener pastures to the family of the boy or girl and then take him or her to the city, either as servant for a fee, in the case of a boy, or prostitution in the case of a girl. Some girls are also used either for housekeeping or commercial baby making. At other times, these girls are even taken beyond the shores of Nigeria to neighbouring African countries and Europe, where they are expected to engage in commercial sex work to repay the money reportedly spent in processing their documents.
Forced labour
According to Wikipedia, Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons including forced labour and prostitution. Trafficked Nigerian women and children are recruited from rural areas within the country’s borders, women and girls for involuntary domestic servitude and sexual exploitation, and boys for forced labour in street vending, domestic servitude, mining, and begging.
“Nigerian women and children are taken from Nigeria to other West and Central African countries, primarily Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, Chad, Benin, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Gambia, for the same purposes. Children from West African states like Benin, Togo, and Ghana – where Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) rules allow for easy entry, are also forced to work in Nigeria, and some are subjected to hazardous jobs in Nigeria’s granite mines. Nigerian women and girls are taken to Europe, especially to Italy and Russia, and to the Middle East and North Africa, for forced prostitution.”
Victims rescue in Ibadan
On February 7, 2019, the Nigeria Immigration Services (NIS) uncovered a “baby factory” in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital. The centre, located at Block B, House 8, Adebayo Oke Street, around Sharp Corner in the Oluyole area of Ibadan, was owned by a woman simply identified as Mrs Stella.
NIS Comptroller in the state, Saleh Abdullahi, said the Zone F unit of the state command discovered the centre, rescued two female victims, including a pregnant woman, and arrested three suspects, while the alleged operator of the factory is now at large.
Mr Abdullahi said officials discovered the centre on January 28, 2019, while trying to rescue a 16-year-old girl, Mary Yawa, who was said to have been delivered of a baby at the centre on August 28, 2018, but was allegedly held by a woman, Kehinde Omotoso, in Awolowo Bashorun area, Ibadan.
Mr Abdullahi said the pregnant Miss Hadji, also a Togolese, claimed she was brought to Mrs Stella’s baby factory by her brother, Kodjo. He added that the NIS and the police had been on the search for Mrs Stella and the Alhaja from Saki. According to him, Mrs Stella’s house was met under lock and key. He vowed the two women would soon be arrested and prosecuted.
The two victims and three accomplices were later handed over to the representatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). One of the victims, Miss Yawa, whose baby was taken from her, said the Alhaja lied to her that the baby had been given to Adewale’s mother.
She said she did not know the whereabouts of her baby and the said Adewale. The other victim, Miss Hadji, said Mrs Stella told her brother, Kodjo, that she would assist her to take care of the baby whenever she gave birth. She said Stella later told her after four days of living with her that the baby would be collected from her after birth and given to the mother of the person that impregnated her.
He said: “In the process of investigation, Yawa, a Togolese, revealed that she was impregnated by one Adewale when she was a housemaid to one Alhaja from Saki. A few days to her delivery, the Alhaja took her to Stella, who is not a nurse, where she was delivered of a baby on August 22, 2018.
“After her delivery, precisely on August 27, 2018, the Alhaja, her master from Saki, came to the house with another Igbo woman and took her child away, while Yawa was, thereafter, given to her end user, Omotoso, where she was rescued. The Nigeria Immigration Service visited Stella’s house but did not meet her. Officers met a 25-year-old girl, Odunayo Abiodun, who claimed to be Stella’s area sister, and another 21-year-old pregnant lady, Esther Hadji.”
Abuja baby factory
Similarly, on February 11, 2018, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) said it had sealed an illegal maternity and baby factory in Nyanya, Abuja.
In a statement signed by the NAPTIP spokesman, Mr Josiah Emerole, and made available to newsmen in Abuja, NAPTIP said that the acclaimed Chief Medical Director of the baby factory was arrested few weeks back for allegedly swindling several women who were in dire need of babies.
He said that the sealing of the illegal medical outfit, Akuchi Herbal Concept, located on Old road, around Pure Water area, New Nyanya, Abuja, was part of the ongoing investigation into the case.
According to him, the case had already generated public concern among Nigerians especially relations of the victims.
The spokesman said that the latest operation was coordinated by the Director, Investigation and Monitoring Department, Mr Greg Esele on the directive of the Director General, Ms Julie Okah- Donli. He said the agency recovered local herbs used by the suspect to stimulate ovulation for women, some soaked black-coloured leaves and concoction, among others.
Emerole explained that contrary to the suspect’s claim as displayed on the signpost, the clinic was virtually empty, thereby raising question on how the women were able to believe his claims. He said investigation was ongoing to determine the level of crime allegedly committed by the suspect.
He said: “The operatives of NAPTIP last week arrested a 38-year-old herbalist, (names withheld) for allegedly deceiving women into thinking they are pregnant and thereafter giving other people’s babies to them having collected lots of money. The suspect, who is from Enugu State is the owner of Akuchi Herbal Concept, located at New Nyanya, Abuja, was arrested after weeks of diligent surveillance by combined team of Officers of the agency and those of the Department of State Services.
“Investigation is ongoing to clearly establish level of the unwholesome activities of the suspect and we are not leaving any stone unturned in getting to the roots of the crime. This is also in line with our determination to ensure that Nigerians are not exploited in any way.”
19 girls, 4 children rescued in Lagos
Also, on Sunday, September 29, 2019, the Lagos State Police Command on said it had rescued 19 pregnant girls and four kids suspected to have been abducted by persons engaged in child trafficking.
The Command, in a statement issued by its Public Relations Officer (PPRO) DSP Bala Elkana, said that it also had arrested two female suspects, Happiness Ukwuoma, 40, and Sherifat Ipeya, 54, in connection with the incident.
Elkana said the command had launched a manhunt on the principal suspect and mother of five simply known as Madam Oluchi said to be a native of Mbano in Imo. He said that the pregnant girls, who were between the ages of 15 and 28 were alleged trafficked from Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Abia and Imo States to Lagos State, revealing that the suspects who were natives of Imo and Epe in Lagos State did not have any formal medical training but were allegedly operating as nurses.
Elkana said that the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, CP Zubairu Muazu, had visited the locations and ordered the State Criminal Investigation Department to take over the case.
He said: “Detectives from the Isheri-Osun Police Station rescued 19 pregnant girls and four children from four different locations in Ikotun area of Lagos State suspected to be used for child trafficking. The victims were mostly abducted by the suspects from different states and brought to Lagos and turned them into baby factories by getting them pregnant only to sell off the babies to potential buyers.”
Collaborating with ECOWAS
In December 2018, NAPTIP DG, Okah-Donli, disclosed that over 20,000 Nigerian girls were in Mali working as sex slaves.
Addressing the ECOWAS Parliament, she said that the girls were sold for between N210,000 and N240,000, and expected to pay back about N1.2million through sex slaving before regaining their freedom. She told the parliament that “some of the girls arrived in their school uniforms, meaning that they were kidnapped on their way to or from school.”
Okah-Donli, who led a fact-finding mission to Mali, disclosed that though the girls were forced into sex slavery; after regaining their freedom decided to become “madams of their own to deal in new girls. She said that some of the girls were unwilling to return to Nigeria as they were now used to the “sex for gold” trade. Okah-Donli said that many of the victims who were rescued in 2011 and some others in 2017 came back to Nigeria, only to return with more girls.
She said: “There are more than one million Nigerians residing in Mali; about 20,000 of these Nigerians are girls believed to be victims of trafficking and the number increases by 50 per day. Many victims are deceived to leave their livelihoods in Nigeria for greener pastures in Mali. Some of the victims were abducted from Nigeria, including those that arrived in their school uniforms.
“The traffic madams are well known to the Nigerian community, but they are afraid to report them because of the complicity of the Malian security agencies, especially the gendarmerie that assist the traffickers to carry out their activities. Nigerian victims are way-billed from a motor-park in Cotonou, dropped at Sikasso near the border with Burkina Faso, from where they are picked by Malian gendarmerie for delivery to their madams.”
Furthermore, she said: “The Malian authorities collect taxes from the victims on a weekly basis and sell condoms and other medications compulsorily to their victims every month. Malian women are already grumbling that Nigerian girls are taking their men, and there are fears of imminent xenophobic attacks. Three Nigerian girls were killed between November and December 2018.
“The girls were tricked and recruited from different areas and brought to work as domestic staff while the babies they gave birth to are usually sold for between N300,000 and N500,000 depending on their sex. Boys usually are sold for N500,000 each and girls are sold for N300,000 each. The command is working with other agencies and stakeholders in rehabilitating and resettling the pregnant girls and the babies, while investigation is ongoing and the suspects will be charged to court.”
