Baby sells for same price as 50kg of rice in eastern Nigeria

As 16-year-old Maria strained under the anguish of
labor in eastern Nigeria, a midwife repeatedly
slapped her across the face – but the real ordeal
began minutes after the birth of her baby.

Baby sells for same price as 50kg of rice in
eastern Nigeria. Reuters Photo
“The nurse took my baby away to be washed. She
never brought her back,” the teenager said, gazing
down at her feet.
Maria said she learned her newborn daughter had
been given up for adoption for which she received
20,000 naira ($65.79) – the same price as a 50
kilogram bag of rice.
And Maria is far from alone.
A Thomson Reuters Foundation investigative team
spoke to more than 10 Nigerian women duped into
giving up their newborns to strangers in houses
known as “baby factories” in the past two years or
offered babies whose origins were unknown.
Five women did not want to be interviewed, despite
the guarantee of anonymity, fearing for their own
safety with criminal gangs involved in the baby
trade, while two men spoke of being paid to act as
“studs” to get women pregnant.
Although statistics are hard to come by, campaigners say the sale of newborns is
widespread – and they fear the illegal trade is
becoming more prevalent with Nigeria into
recession this year amid ongoing political turbulence.
“The government is too overstretched by other
issues to focus on baby trafficking,” said Arinze
Orakwue, head of public enlightenment at the
National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in
Persons (NAPTIP).
Record numbers of baby factories were raided or
closed down in the southeastern states of Abia,
Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo this year, NAPTIP
said.
A total of 14 were discovered in the first nine
months of 2016, up from six in 2015 and 10 in 2014,
the data showed.
Despite the growing number of raids, the scam
exploiting couples desperate for a baby and young,
pregnant, single women continues with newborns
sold for up to $5,000 in Africa’s most populous
nation where most people live on less than $2 a
day.
Cultural barriers are also a factor in the West
African nation, with teenage girls fearing they will
be publicly shamed by strict fathers or partners over
unwanted pregnancies if they do not give up their
children, experts say.
“In southeastern Nigeria a woman is deemed a
failure if she fails to conceive. But it is also taboo
for a teenager to fall pregnant out of wedlock,” said
Orakwue.
Maria said in the home in Imo state where she gave
birth pregnant teenagers were welcomed by a
maternal nurse who liked to be called “mama” but
went on to sell the babies they delivered.
“(After I gave birth) somebody told me that mama
collected big money from people before giving them
other people’s babies,” Maria told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation in the grounds of a school
compound in her village.
“I do not know where my baby is now,” said Maria,
using a false name for her own protection.
A lot of the trade is carried out in Nigeria but
authorities suspect babies are also sold to people
from Europe and the United States because many
foreigners continue to seek infants there despite the
controversy around Nigerian adoptions.

HIDDEN PROBLEM

The U.S. Department of State alerted prospective
adoptive parents to the issue of child buying from
Nigeria in June 2014 after Nigerian media warned
that people were posing as owners of orphanages or
homes for unwed mothers to make money.
“The State Department is aware of a growing
number of adoption scams,” an alert on its website
read.
Over 1,600 children have been adopted from Nigeria
by U.S. citizens since 1999, according to the State
Department website, about a third of them aged
between one and two years old.
A U.S. official said the State Department facilitates
contact between foreign officials and U.S.
authorities when foreign governments raise any
concerns regarding the welfare of an adopted child.
“To date, we are not aware of any concerns
regarding the welfare of a child adopted from
Nigeria,” a State Department official told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation in a statement.
In Britain a couple was found by the High Court to
have “fallen under the spell” of an elaborate fraud
after paying 4,500 pounds ($5,600) for herbal
treatment in Nigeria that caused the woman’s
stomach to swell, media reported in 2014.
The couple only realized they had been duped nine
months later when presented with a baby in Nigeria
that actually was not theirs, the Daily Mail
newspaper reported.
Babies, whose biological parents or backgrounds
are unknown, are offered to women who have not
been able to conceive naturally, according to
NAPTIP and interviews with three women.
The British government said it was committed to
stamping out what it calls the “miracle babies”
phenomenon.
“Specially-trained teams are working at the UK
border to identify and safeguard babies and
children who may be at risk of trafficking,” said a
spokesman for the Home Office (UK interior
ministry) in a statement.
Denmark suspended adoptions from Nigeria in 2014
citing concerns over forgery, corruption and lack of
control by the authorities.
Apart from the illicit trade in babies, Nigeria also
faces the problem of domestic and international
trafficking in women and children.
Human trafficking, including selling children, is
illegal in Nigeria, but almost 10 years ago a UNESCO
report identified the industry as the country’s third
most common crime after financial fraud and drug
trafficking – and the situation appears to be getting
worse, according to campaigners.
The Nigerian government has not ratified an
internationally recognized set of rules known as the
Hague Adoption Convention which meant the laws
governing adoptions remain murky and complicated,
campaigners said.
“There is corruption in the adoption process and
that is the individual (Nigerian) states’
responsibility,” said NAPTIP’s Orakwue in a phone
interview
“But central government should step up its funding
to NAPTIP so we can increase support to victims,”
Orakwue said.

HERBAL TREATMENT
Sophie, who was not able to conceive, told the
Thomson Reuters Foundation she started to
develop the symptoms of pregnancy after visiting a
herbalist in Enugu state in 2014.
However the traditional doctor told Sophie her
swollen stomach contained gas resulting from the
herbal treatment rather than a fetus – but she could
arrange to buy a baby.
“(The herbalist) said that she would bring me a
newborn baby, girl or boy, depending on which one
I wanted,” she said in the grimy sitting room of her
apartment in southeastern Nigeria.
The woman said a girl would cost 380,000 naira
($1,250) while a boy would cost 500,000 naira
($1,645), said Sophie who opted for a girl.
But a sense of obligation to the woman who
brought her a child prevented her from reporting the
crime, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“I considered everything and thought to myself ‘why
should I report (the herbalist) to the police?’ She
had helped me,” she said.
NAPTIP does not have data on the number of
domestic adoptions that have taken place, a figure
it says is not held by central government.
“In the southeastern states, the sale of babies is
unarguably very prevalent as recorded by the
agency,” said Cordelia Ebiringa, NAPTIP’s
commander in Enugu state.

DEADLY GAME
Men are also involved in the process of illicit baby
trafficking, with sperm donors impregnating
surrogate mothers who then sell their babies,
according to two Nigerian men.
Surrogacy is illegal in Nigeria.
Jonathan, 33, said he was paid 25,000 naira ($82)
by his boss or “madam” every time he helped a
client to become pregnant.
“I don’t see it as somebody exploiting me. The
madams pay me for my work,” said Jonathan, who
withheld his full name.
Jonathan said he did not know whether the women
gave their babies away or went on to sell them
although he was concerned what he was doing
could be illegal.
“I often think ‘what if the police catch me?’”
Nigeria’s anti-human trafficking agency said it did
not have data or information on the role of sperm
donors, but many women they spoke to did not
want to reveal how they fell pregnant.
“NAPTIP has no records of studs that impregnate
the women at the baby factories as most of the
pregnant women rescued and interviewed in such
cases claimed unplanned pregnancies,” said
Ebiringa.
Little information was made available by the
Nigerian police or authorities in southeastern states
about the number or identity of the people who run
the “baby factories”.
No data was provided on the number of arrests by
police in southern states of Enugu and Abia on baby
trafficking offences despite repeated requests by the
Thomson Reuters Foundation.
But the dangers involved, both from the law and
from trafficking gangs, are palpable, according to
Jonathan, who estimates he has fathered about 15
children as a “stud”.
“These (baby traffickers) can be dangerous,” said
Jonathan, who was once threatened by a group of
thugs who found out what he was doing. “They are
ready to kill anybody if you stand in their way.”