Nigeria: Mothers Selling Their Babies - Where is the Love?

When pain and sickness made me cry who gazed upon my heavy eye and wept for fear that I should die...My mother. This is one of the lines of a popular nursery rhyme portraying the infinite love and bond between mother and child such that some mothers are willing to give up their lives for their children in trouble or disaster situations, but with the growing trend these days of mothers wilfully selling their children to buyers whose intent are glaringly sinister one wonders what has become of their maternal love and instinct.

The print and broadcast media and much of cyberspace last month were awash with the story of the police raid of a suspected baby factory in Aba, Abia State, where 32 pregnant teenage girls, who were reportedly forced to have babies in a baby-selling business under the watch of Dr. Hyacinth Orikara of the Cross Foundation 'Heda Clinic', were arrested along with him. These babies were allegedly offered for sale for ritual, trafficking and other purposes.

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