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Nigerian police have rescued 19 pregnant women from a “baby factory” in Lagos, and two of the three women suspected of exploiting the victims have been arrested.
Police say the principal suspect behind this baby factory operation escaped and the hunt is now on for Madam Oluchi, a mother of five, from Mbano, Imo State, who lured the girls to Lagos from various parts of the South-East for the sole purpose of getting them pregnant, pulse.ng reports. The two women who have been arrested worked at the factory as untrained nurses.
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According to the BBC, the babies were sold based on their sex; male babies would fetch $1,400 and the females were sold for $830. Police say the children were to be trafficked, but to who or where the potential buyers are located remains a mystery.
According to the statement from police:
“On September 19,2019, at 4pm, while acting on the strength of information from a reliable source, detectives from the Isheri Osun Police Station, led by the Divisional Police Officer, CSP Chike Ibe, stormed a building at 14 Adisa Street, Ayanwale area, Ikotun, Lagos, suspected to be used for child trafficking.
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“Nineteen pregnant girls, aged 15 and 28, were rescued. Four kids were also rescued. They were recovered from four different locations.
The young girls and women who were rescued ranged in age between 15 and 28, and many are speaking out, telling local reporters that they were lured to Nigeria’s largest city with the promise of employment. Instead, they were held captive at the baby-making farm and raped.
“[A] woman came to pick me at the [bus] park and brought me here,” one of those rescued told the Vanguard newspaper.
“The next day, I was summoned by our madam, who told me that I would not leave the premises until next year,” she is quoted as saying.
“So far, I have slept with seven different men before I discovered I was pregnant. I was told that after delivery, I would be paid handsomely.”
Most of the women were reportedly abducted “for the purpose of getting them pregnant and selling the babies”, a police statement said. The rescued women and children have been rehoused and are being rehabilitated, the report states.