Roland Ogbonnaya
6 January 2008
Lagos — The anti-human trafficking law recently claimed its first casualty in Abakakili, Ebonyi State when a 28 year-old child trafficker, Miss Nneka Orji-Okoro was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment without an option of fine by a Federal High Court in the state.
As the campaigners count their blessings, investigation has also revealed a new face of child trafficking in the eastern part of the country that requires urgent attention.
Nneka was 17 years old early last year and in SSS II when she discovered she was pregnant. She kept the secret away from her parents and made a successful attempt to hide the pregnancy from everybody until the delivery. Nneka only confided to her friend who suggested to her that there is a hospital in Enugu that will be ready to buy off the baby from her and offer her the opportunity to go back to school and continue life without anybody knowing what happened.
She bought the idea and disappeared from the village to the undisclosed hospital in Enugu, where she had a baby girl. Before the birth of the baby, she was offered to sell the baby to the hospital at N25,000 if it's a baby girl and N30,000 for baby boy, which she agreed and was made to signed a document to that effect.
However, after the birth and looking at her bundle of joy lying by her side, the string between mother and baby made Nneka to change her mind of selling the baby to the hospital. Looking at what it was going to loose, the management of the hospital insisted that Nneka must fulfil the terms of agreement earlier entered into-to abandon her baby with them and be paid N25,000 for that effort. This is how the young lady's pregnancy came to public notice and the knowledge of her parents as well as the intervention of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP). With the efforts of the agency and the poor parents of the girl, the hospital was paid about N40,000 as the bill incured by the mother and child at the hospital.
According to THISDAY investigations on the enormity of child trafficking in South Eastern part of the country, especially in Ebonyi, Enugu and Abia States, this new face of child trafficking is on the increase. Unregistered and illegal hospitals and maternity homes are springing up in neighbourhoods. According to Mr. Tony Ezego, a resident in Umuahia, this ugly practice has been going on, a common practice no one can actually come out to confront.
These illegal hospitals and maternity homes exploit the ignorance and greediness of some of these young girls who mistakenly got pregnant in their parents houses. Some of them run away to some of these hospitals, maternity homes immediately they discovered they were pregnant. They are taken care of by the homes or hospitals until they put to bed and made to sign away the babies, which are later sold over the hospital counters to willing couples or individuals who pretend to adopt them, circumventing existing adoption procedures and laws.
Further investigation revealed that the hospitals or illegal maternity homes sell these babies to these people who pose as they need the babies for adoption. For the hospitals, baby boys go for about N400,000, while the baby girls are given out for about N300,000. All these transaction are done without any documentation unlike when appropriate adoption is contracted. That means that the buyers can do anything with the babies even for ritual purposes.
At Umuosu, a village out skirt of Umuahia, Abia State capital, Miss Oluoma Agbara told THISDAY that everybody knows that such maternity homes exist, but no one will point exactly that this is the hospital that engage in such illicit business. She said there was this girl in the village that was pregnant at a time even to the knowledge of everyone. Suddenly she disappeared, had her baby and came back to tell people that the baby died after birth. Oluoma said what baffled everyone was how the girl went on spending spree to the amazement of the villagers. She suspected that the girl patronised such dubious maternity homes.
Mrs. Ijeoma Okoronkwo, Zonal Head, NAPTIP, South East, Enugu State confirmed to THISDAY the increasing rate of child trafficking in the South East. She said that the activities have been going on but were not reported or people did not know it was wrong. She explained that with the zonal office of the agency in Enugu, there have been avalanche of reports and petitions on child trafficking, especially on the sell of newborn babies by dubious hospitals, illegal maternity homes and their collaborators across the states with emphasis on Abia State.
"Yes, since we opened our office here in the past couple of years, there is this new trend of child trafficking in the South East. There are these hospitals and maternity homes that go for young girls who are pregnant and helpless. They shelter them till delivery time and they are made to sign out there babies.
"For example, for having a baby girl, the girls are paid about N20,000 to N25,000 while for baby boys they are paid N30,000 to let go their children for adoption. Interestingly, these hospital turn around and sell these babies between N150,000 to N200000 for girls and ^200,000 to N300,000 for boys. I must tell you that the trade is booming in south east states and we are watching some of these hospitals and maternity homes in Imo, Abia, Anambra and Enugu States," she told THISDAY.
Late last year, Mrs. Okoronkwo said her agency received reports from some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from Abia State that there were some hospitals, maternity homes and traditional birth attendants who are involved in this illicit business and have been placed under watch.
The agency's zonal Head, South East also confirmed the case of Nneka who found herself pregnant and agreed to sign off the baby, but later changed her mind after delivery, whom the hospital refused to let go until NAPTIP intervened before mother and child were later released after the hospital bill was paid. In Enugu in particular, she said some of the dubious hospitals and maternity homes have abused the law and provision made by the former Enugu State Government to allow school girls who discovered they were pregnant to go to certain designated hospitals to have their babies, give them for adoption and come back to continue their education.
But what actually happen to these babies that are sold to the buyers? Are they really given out for these fees for adoption or for other ulterior motives? Mrs. Okoronkwo said while there may be genuine ones who buy these babies for adoption, she assumed that many of these babies end up on the ritual table, which she described as very unfortunate. Her assumption that some of the babies are used for ritual purposes was hinged on that fact that there was this man who came back to the same hospital to buy another baby after a week he bought a baby boy.
"There should be a question on what he did with the baby he bought the previous week? They may be using these innocent babies for rituals and not adoption. It is sad that babies are now bought off the shelves in hospitals and maternity homes; anybody can come in and buy one. Unfortunately we have not prosecuted any of these hospitals and maternities because of the slow process of the courts. But many of the hospitals and maternity homes are also under the agency's watch across the states mentioned.
It could be recalled that Police authorities last September disclosed the arrest of two people who offered to buy a six-year-old girl for N600,000 in Maiduguri, Borno State capital northeast Nigeria.
The disclosure followed the arrest of six people, including a medical doctor, for alleged involvement in the sale of children.
Then Borno State Police Commissioner, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar, said the doctor (name withheld) and a member of his staff had sold a newborn baby through an intermediary for N30,000 to a woman who was being trailed by the police.
Abubakar said Police received information that the woman had earlier visited a motherless babies' home in Maiduguri and inquired about adopting some of them.
Her request, he said, was turned down because she was not a resident of Maiduguri. The same woman reappeared in Maiduguri with a man who police suspected was her intermediary's brother. This time she bought a baby boy for a price the police was unable to ascertain. Abubakar later handed the doctor, who allegedly got babies with the connivance of women who had unwanted pregnancies to NAPTIP for further action.
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