After exposing the dubious and often dangerous practices of
fake doctors in the last season of Africa Investigates, we reassembled our
Nigeria team and returned to investigate allegations of medical clinics and
orphanages involved in the illegal sale of newborn babies.
Nigerian journalist Rosemary Nwaebuni had heard reports of
young girls being kept against their will and forced to produce babies, only
for the children to be sold on to childless couples, desperate to avoid the
public scrutiny and stigma of legal adoption.
Joining Rosemary once again was renowned investigative
journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, fresh from his recent explosive undercover
investigation into judicial corruption in Ghana. Anas's unique experience and
myriad undercover skills quickly took us to the core of the baby business.
In parts of Nigeria women who remain childless face
prejudice. It can even arouse suspicion of witchcraft. Rosemary wanted to show the
lengths that women are prepared to go to achieve pregnancy; for many, legal
adoption is not a viable solution.
Instead, they turn to so-called "miracle" doctors.
In spite of frequent crackdowns by the authorities, you don't need to look very
hard to find "miracle" clinics open for business in the discreet
suburbs of Port Harcourt, Aba and Imo State.
Behind high walls and locked gates, maternity clinics with
reassuring names such as God's Gift Clinic offer a phantom service. Women are
injected with hormones and unknown concoctions to make their bellies swell,
providing the appearance of pregnancy. After nine months, the
"miracle" doctors call them back to specially selected hospitals in
Port Harcourt where they perform a fake birth, making an incision into their
belly to give the appearance of a Caesarean scar and present them with a baby.
Yet, unbeknown to the parents, the baby is not naturally theirs.
Rosemary and Anas presented themselves as a couple desperate
for a child and under pressure from their parents to produce an heir. The first
character they investigated was a fake pharmacist with a reputation for
miraculous fertility treatments. After a very brief and clearly bogus
examination, he was quick to diagnose Anas with a low sperm count and a medical
condition normally associated with women. Artificial insemination was suggested
as the only solution.
In real life, of course, both Anas and Rosemary have
children.
Running parallel to "miracle" doctors is Nigeria's
baby farming industry. One leading anti-child trafficking expert, Professor
Alex Dodoo from the World Health Organisation's Collaborating Centre in Ghana
told us that the level of baby farms has reached "epidemic" levels.
We had heard quite a few horrific stories of baby farms where
young girls were being kept and repeatedly impregnated by their captors to fuel
the booming child trafficking industry and the area around Port Harcourt was
said to be a hotbed of this secretive trade. In the past two years, several
baby farms have been raided by the authorities. While the government is eager
to show that it is doing something about human trafficking - said to be one of
the fastest-growing areas of organised crime in the country - we wanted to find
out if the illegal baby trade was still going on behind closed doors in
hospitals and orphanages.
To get closer to the traffickers we went undercover again
and visited various orphanages we had reason to believe were actually front
organisations for baby selling. In each we asked about adopting a baby at short
notice and without the necessary legal paperwork. At Destiny Child Orphanage we
were quickly offered a "fast-track" adoption to buy a newborn baby
within weeks. The price was $4,000 for a girl and $5,000 for a boy. Of course
we wanted to meet the mother to find out what conditions she was living in but
despite our best efforts, excuses were always found for why that was not
possible.
The next organisation on our list was Basic Clinic run by Dr
Ohaeri, a man who had been raided in the past for his links to the baby trade
but was quickly back working in his clinic. Dr Ohaeri was initially suspicious
and avoided our reporters but he eventually agreed to meet and offered to help
find us a baby. After our meeting he confirmed that he had a baby ready and
would sell for about $4,500.
Baby farms have regularly been busted by the Nigerian
authorities - in 2013 one police station alone said it had taken 106 children
into care. But the business is so profitable that it has proved very difficult to
stamp out. Footage from one police raid on a maternity home run by Dr James
Ezuma shows his dazzling collection of luxury cars. It is in sharp contrast to
the wretched conditions in which the expectant mothers - pregnant girls,
ranging in age from 14 to 19 - are being kept.
It is one of the saddest things to witness that in societies
in which corruption is endemic, healthcare and childcare systems are prone to
the schemes of the criminal and corrupt. Our undercover footage of one doctor,
whom we pleaded with to help a childless mother to have a baby, summed up that
abuse of power when he said: "I am a doctor, I can facilitate."
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