The police in Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, announced yesterday that it had discovered a new illegal maternity clinic where women were made pregnant and forced to sell their babies after birth.
Authorities discovered the “baby factory” in the Isolo district after agents found seven pregnant women and girls who had escaped. The announcement comes just days after the police reportedly rescued 19 pregnant women and four babies from similar circumstances in another part of the city.
“We had received information about seven pregnant women who were waiting at a bus stop and our agents were going to pick them up,” said Bala Elkana, police spokesperson for Lagos. “When they were questioned, they said they were part of a group of 20 women who were made pregnant and that they had all escaped on Monday evening.”
“Only seven of them, between 13 and 27 years old, were found. The 13 others probably fled somewhere else,” said Elkana.
Babies for sale
The Lagos police rescued 19 pregnant women between 15 and 28 years old from a similar ‘baby factory’ on Monday. According to the authorities, the children were sold for 300,000 nairas (830 United States Dollar) for girls and 500,000 (1,382 United States Dollar) for boys
Human trafficking, including the sale of children, is the third most common crime in Nigeria, in addition to fraud and drug trafficking, according to the United Nations.
