- Their operators should be prosecuted
Barely two weeks after police operatives rescued 19 pregnant girls from a baby factory in Lagos, policemen from the state police command also found another set of pregnant girls and women who had escaped from another baby factory in the state. Acting on intelligence report, the police swooped on the operators of the first baby factory at 14, Adisa Street, in Ayanwale area of Ikotun, Lagos, where they arrested two suspects, Happiness Ukwuoma, 40 years old, and Sherifat Ipeya, 54 years. The police spokesman in the state, Bala Elkana, said however that one Madam Oluchi, a mother of five said to be the principal suspect, escaped.
In the other incident, policemen reportedly found seven victims, aged between 13 and 27 years, who had escaped from a baby factory in the Isolo area of the state, where they were camped. Apparently the victims did not know that their babies were to be sold after delivering them. But when they realised this was the case, they fled and were found by policemen at about 1.00 am on October 2, when they were loitering around Cele Bus Stop. They were stranded and lost.
That these girls decided to flee from the baby factory in Isolo after realising that their babies would be sold partly corroborated the reason given by the police for how unsuspecting girls and even women were lured into the illicit business. They were told at the south eastern part of the country – Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Abia and Imo states – where they were brought from that they were going to be provided menial jobs in Lagos. “The girls were tricked with employment as domestic staff in Lagos,” Elkana explained.
So, this is more or less the local equivalent of the larger human trafficking at the international level which sees many girls and ladies being deceived with lucrative job possibilities abroad only for the victims to get to their destinations to realise that they had been tricked. They end up as prostitutes or sex machines that make money for those who transported them abroad.
As with human trafficking, greed and economic considerations would seem the oxygen that is sustaining the illicit and inhuman business. We understand a male child is sold by the operators of the baby factories for N500,000 while female babies attract N300,000. We do not know how much the victims are paid for making themselves available to be impregnated by unknown randy men equally recruited by the baby factory operators for the purpose.
Things are tough in the country, no doubt. But it is not as bad as to make any rational human being undertake the risks involved in this kind of business. In the first place, the victims could contract all kinds of sexually transmitted diseases because of the unprotected sex that they are made to have with complete strangers. The possibility of contracting HIV/AIDS is also high. Then, they are attended to by quack nurses in case of emergencies.
Babies are supposed to be bundles of joy that should be celebrated on arrival. It baffles us therefore that some ladies or women would give such bundles of joy away for filthy lucre that whatever the operators of the baby factories offer them represents. It baffles us that after going through the sometimes harrowing labour pains, these victims would willingly give the babies away to people who might buy them for ritual purposes.
While we would always call on government at all levels to work on getting our teeming youths a conducive environment for meaningful employment, the state police command should continue to liaise with other agencies and stakeholders to rehabilitate and resettle the innocent pregnant girls and the babies. However, the operators of such homes should be prosecuted alongside the victims who are of age. They should be treated as accomplices because they know what they are doing.
We also urge Nigerians to avail the police of information about the existence of such baby factories wherever they may be in the country. If such homes are found in Lagos, we have no doubt that a lot of them exist in several other places. Factories are places where goods are manufactured or assembled, chiefly by machines. Baby factory therefore is an anomaly.
