Police uncover ‘baby factory’, rescue 16 pregnant girls
The Abia State Police Command have busted a suspected “baby factory” in Aba, the commercial hub of the state during an operation conducted on Thursday night by police operatives from the Rapid Response Squad.
Penpushing reports that the Command Public Relations Officer Maureen Chinaka made this known during a press briefing on Friday in Umuahia, the state capital, explaining that 16 pregnant girls, aged between 17 and 27 years, were rescued during the operation.
The police spokesperson added that 13 of the rescued pregnant girls hail from Akwa Ibom State, while two others come from Cross Rivers, as well as one of the girls’ hails from Ebonyi State, stressing that the operatives also rescued eight children, comprising five males and three females, from the “baby factory”.
Penpushing further reports that Chinaka, a superintendent of police disclosed that the eight children were aged between two and 11 years and two suspects – a woman and a man – allegedly harbouring the girls at the “baby factory” have been arrested by the police.
The command imagemaker identified the suspects as 29-year-old woman, Onyinyechi Okoro, and 32-year-old man, Ekene Okezie, explaining that while Okoro hails from Ihechiowa Community in Arochukwu Local Government Area of Abia State, Okezie is from Aro-Ndizuogu, a community in Ideato North Local Government Area of Imo State.
Penpushing also reports that Chinaka said discrete investigation was ongoing as at the time of filing this report, just as findings revealed that baby factory sometimes disguised as an orphanage, where traffickers hold women, mostly teenagers, against their will, rape and force them to get pregnant.
The newborns at the facility are then sold illegally to adoptive parents, while girls in such a facility are sometimes forced into child labour and prostitution, as investigation equally revealed how the sales were executed with the collusion of some officials of the Nigerian police and the judiciary.
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