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Baby factory’Pregnant teens help trafficking probe

Posted by ndy on June 10, 2011 at 6:59pm
Pregnant teenagers found at an illegal clinic in Aba, Abia State and accused of trying to sell their babies are helping investigators find the organizers of baby trafficking rings. They had lured the 32 teens to an illegal clinic to provide babies for trafficking rings, said Arinze Orakwe, a spokesman for the National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP). ShareThe girls, about 15 to 18 years old, as well as the director of the Cross Foundation, also known as the Heda Clinic, were arrested during a police raid on the clinic last month. But NAPTIP considers only Hycinth Orikara, the director, a suspect. Two girls have returned home after giving birth, and the rest of the girls are at the agency’s shelter in the nearby city of Enugu are collaborating with investigators. Orakwe says the girls cannot face charges. “They are victims of people who have devised evil means to make money.”Police have accused Orikara of buying the babies from young mothers and selling them for profit to childless couples in a trade that is believed to be fueled by the taboo of childlessness in this African nation. He denied the charge, explaining that he is a volunteer doctor who delivers unwanted babies and places them in orphanages.One of the girls told Abia State Police Chief Bala Hassan that mothers sell their babies by being tricked or forced to give up their babies, which are later resold. NAPTIP officials at the anti-trafficking agency say they are alarmed by growing illegal adoptions which have no control or oversight.NGOs say the young mothers rarely get to see their newborns. Benjamin Mbakwem, a member of the Imo State chapter of the Child Protection Network, says: “They are handed over to the couple waiting outside the delivery room.”“When you adopt a child through the government, everything is done in the open, you have to go through interviews,” Capt. Jide George, chairman of the board of trustees of the Lagos-based Little Saints Orphanage, said. “In most cases, it (illegally adopting a baby) is a conspiracy between the husband and the wife,” George said.
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