Nigeria’s House of Representatives moved on Thursday (23/10/2014) to prohibit any baby factories and the growing trend of “racketeering with human pregnancy.”
It has be finallized that such person will have sentenced for 10-year jail term. Not excluding any pregnant girl with the intension of giving birth to children for sale on conviction.
In the same vein, a maximum jail term of two years or a fine of N500,000 or both awaits a person who operates a “baby centre, institution or surrogate home” without registration with the appropriate government office.
A bill for an act to prohibit such practices passed second reading at the House on Thursday.
It was an amendment bill to the existing Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Law Enforcement and Administration Act, 2005.
The bill was sponsored by a member from Imo State, Mr. Eddie Mbadiwe.
The current proposal is to be added to the extant Section 25 of the Principal Act by inserting Section “25A.”
Mbadiwe explained that the aim of the bill was to “prohibit racketeering with human pregnancy or operation of baby production factory, harbouring of pregnancy of a person under or above the age of 18 or out of parents’ or guardians’ custody, or selling or attempting to sell newborn babies.
The bill passed second reading in a unanimous voice vote.
Baby factories have been on the increase in recent years in parts of the country.
Operators working in connivance with parents in some cases or through outright negotiation with the girls, keep them in homes where they are delivered of babies.
Reports indicate that able-bodied men are paid to sleep with the girls.
Following the delivery of the children, the young mothers are reportedly “paid off”, while the operators proceed to sell the babies to clients, including ritualists.
In some of the states, a running battle with law enforcement agencies has not succeeded in containing the operators, owing largely to a weak legal framework for their prosecution.
It is better to advice any one who engage on business like this to stop now or face the charge that follows it.
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