Police Free pregnant girls in baby factory raid

Police free pregnant girls
in 'baby factory' raid

LAGOS – Nigerian police said
Saturday they had raided a home
near Lagos where eight
pregnant girls were staying with
plans to sell each of their
newborns for nearly two
thousand dollars.

"Following intelligence report,
we discovered and stormed on
Friday a baby factory in Akute
district of Ogun state," a police
spokesman, Abimbola Oyeyemi,
told AFP.
In the home they found the
suspected operator and eight
pregnant girls, most of them
under the age of 20, he said.

It is the latest discovery of a so-
called 'baby factory' and the first
known case in southwest
Nigeria.
The Guardian newspaper in
Lagos published on its front
page Saturday a picture of the
eight girls, showing their
protruding bellies.

"The girls confessed that each
newborn child will be sold for
300,000 naira ($1,800/1,300
euros)," Oyeyemi said, adding
that the suspects will be charged
in court with crimes at the end of
the current investigations.
Friday's raid brings to about 125
the number of girls the police
have rescued since 2011 in 'baby
factories', most of which were
located in southeastern states of
the country.

Southeast Nigeria is grappling
with a human trafficking
epidemic, with a series of black
market maternity homes
discovered in the last two years.
In most cases, young women
have run to such homes to avoid
the stigma attached to
pregnancies conceived outside
marriage.

They take a portion of the money
earned from selling the baby.
The buyers are most often
couples who have been unable
to conceive and male children
typically earn a much higher
price than baby girls.
Human trafficking is widespread
in West Africa, where children
are bought from their families to
work in plantations, mines and
factories or as domestic help.

Others are sold into prostitution,
and less commonly they are
tortured or sacrificed in black
magic rituals.

Reference: Vanguard