In this interview,
Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Frank Mba, speaks on what the police are
doing to check the trend.
There have, of late, been an
increase in cases of baby factories as discovered by the police,
especially in the South-east. What do you think is responsible for the
development?
An exposition of the concept of baby
factories tells us the cause of this ugly trade. Baby factories are locations
where young ladies or girls, some teenagers or little above that, are harboured
and deliberately encouraged or forced to become pregnant and subsequently give
up their babies for sale. The fact that these ladies are from poverty-stricken
background makes it possible for them to be easily enticed with the offer of
monetary gains by the operators of these illegal baby farms. After paying some
token to these young mothers, the babies are sold to buyers for illegal
adoptions.
Can you throw more light on the
cause of this problem?
As earlier stated, one of the major
factors that fuel the crime is the pecuniary benefit associated with it. This
is further fueled by the patronage the operators enjoy from desperate couples
who have, in their wrong belief, reduced marriage to mere baby making unions.
You can imagine that,
in some cases, the prices of these
babies differ in sex and occasionally in complexion.
Baby boys are costlier because, in
this part of the world, some wrongly believe that having baby boys gives the
woman legitimacy and strong hold on her marriage. Other factors that fuel the
crime are greed and ungodliness which are the common traits of those in this
unwholesome practice. We can also add that illiteracy and ignorance on the part
of the teenage victims who are either deceived or given false promises or even
expressly forced into baby-making homes, play significant roles here.
As a law enforcement agency, what
strategies have the police put in place to control the ugly trend?
Our strategies are two pronged.
First is through core law enforcement strategies and secondly through
non-traditional law enforcement approach. Law enforcement strategies in this
case include intelligence gathering, raiding of suspected baby factories as
well as arresting and prosecuting the operators and their clients. In doing
this, we adopt another a strategy which I can call ‘naming and
shaming’. In this case, suspects are exposed to the public through the
publication of their pictures and stories. This sometimes serves as a
disincentive to those still indulging in the unwholesome practice.
What about the second strategy which
you said is non-traditional law enforcement approach?
The non-traditional approach
is through public education and enlightenment, just as we are doing now
through this interview and also through counseling of victims who are
mostly under-age girls. It must also be stated that we are constantly training
and re-training our men on how to improve on their capacity to handle the crime
of this nature. In addition, the IGP is also making efforts at strengthening
our special branches, including Juvenile Welfare Centres (JWC) and Anti-Human
Trafficking Unit that handle cases of child trafficking and such other
exploitation of women and children.
Are there laws against baby farming?
Yes. Firstly, the exploitation of
these girls for such purpose is against their fundamental human rights.
Secondly, it offends the anti-human trafficking laws and other related
statutes. Thirdly, it is against the Child Rights Act because some of these
women are under-age who are incapable of taking their own decisions. It
is also amounts to another form of slavery which was banned decades ago.
Abduction of young girls and child theft are offences under our laws.
Can we say that this practice
has negative image on our society?
Indeed there are negative
implications of this crime. It gives us negative perceptions and soils our
image in other climes. Just recently, the EU published a report saying human
trafficking is the third biggest crime in Nigeria. It also increases
prostitution and spread of infections. Some of the young girls, in an attempt
to overcome the psychological trauma associated with giving up or selling their
babies, resort to taking dangerous drugs including psychoactive or psychotropic
substances like marijuana and other depressants. This could have long term
negative implications for our polity.
Is there anything government
can do to stem the trend?
Government can contribute in several
ways to control this, through the strengthening of our adoption laws and
putting machineries in place to monitor compliance to standards in the approved
motherless babies’ homes. This is necessary because some of these homes
are filthy for human existence while some have veered off from being such
homes to baby-breeding factories. On the other hand, government may take steps
to subsidize fertility treatment such as assisted reproductive
technology (ART), including in vitro fertilization (IVF) to help couples in
need, address the problem of infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss. This
will help reduce the quest for ready-made babies.
How do we prevent this recurring
problem?
To prevent this crime, parents must
totally embrace their responsibilities to their children. This cannot be
divorced from the proper education of the child. Again, couples must also
realize, through effective
reorientations, that marriage goes beyond just being a baby-making union; they
must come to terms with this reality to avoid the wild desperation to have a
child at all costs. We must also stop stigmatizing young girls for having
‘illegitimate’ pregnancies. The truth is that most of these girls run into
these baby factories in an attempt to seek protection from parental or family
chastisement and indeed the associated stigma arising from such ‘unwanted’
teenage pregnancies.
Vanguard
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