Childlessness among married couples has been rampant in recent time. In Africa and Nigeria in particular, where the peoples’ culture laid much emphasis on children especially male, childlessness have caused psychological problems to couples and in some cases led to divorce, separation and in most cases forcing families into polygamy. This situation has derailed the family values as partners sometimes engage in promiscuity in search for fruit of the womb. Regrettably, sometimes, this endangers the couples as some have been infected with the dreaded HIV in the desperate search for a child.
In extreme cases, where couples have tried many options and could not still succeed in getting a child, criminal alternative of child stealing, child trafficking and swapping of babies to satisfy couples who are desperately in need of a particular gender of a baby is rife. It has been proven over the years that childlessness or barrenesses are the major reasons for child trafficking and human trafficking in Nigeria today. However, there have also been reported cases of child trafficking for ritual purposes and for financial benefit as in baby kidnapping for ransom.
One may ask, what actually is Child Trafficking? Child trafficking is a form of business transaction with a human being as the article of trade. It involves barter, where a child is been exchanged for money or services. According to the UN Charter, human trafficking is a crime against humanity and when it involves the child; it becomes both a crime against the child right and against humanity. The International Labour Organisation estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked each year and this is quite disturbing. There have been cases of different couples who are confronted with the problem of childlessness indulging in the purchase of babies through illegal means to cover the shame of being labeled “barren” for a long period of time.
Child trafficking has recently become a very lucrative venture in Nigeria especially in the Eastern parts. Apart from childlessness, greed, low level of education and ‘get rich quick’ syndrome can be said to be the driving force that encourages the trade. In our society today especially with the claim of majority of people as good Christians and good Muslims, one wonders how mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters would in their right senses get involved in the illegal business of buying, selling, facilitating and abating the trade in babies? More worrisome is the fact that some highly literate individuals engaging in this illicit trade on innocent babies.
We are looking at childlessness and child trafficking in order to locate their connection. What actually is childlessness? What are the causes of childlessness? What are the social challenges of childlessness? What are the options for childless couples? Our understanding of the realities of the issue of childlessness will actually put us in the right frame of mind to appreciate the escalating cases of child trafficking.
Childlessness can be explained as the condition of being without children or offspring. The causes of childlessness are not gender specific because it affects both men and women with almost equal frequency. Hormonal disturbances are frequent causes of unintentional childlessness in women, adhesions involving the ovaries or in womb in women and blockage of spermatic duct in men can be the cause of childlessness. Also it can be caused through sexually transmitted diseases, abortions, taking of birth control pills, late marriages whereby the woman has reached her menopause stage (making it difficult to bear children) and often times unexplainable causes. There are different options for childless couples instead of condemnation, discrimination and rejection by the society and close relatives, there are government registered motherless homes that have been made available for childless couples for legal adoptions of children, medical attention is at times needed so as to know where the problem is coming from and work together to fight it through medications and careful steps, perseverance also serves because most time there are delays in child bearing and with time and patience children would come.
According to August Strindberg a Swedish dramatist who while addressing his friend said, “CAPTAIN A man has no children. Only women have children. So the future is theirs, while we die childless.” This Swedish thinking may have permeated into the African mentality where a childless woman is considered as having no future in her husband’s home. The stigma of childlessness is not hammered on the men but on women hence women see it as a do or die affair to have a child she could call her own thereby making her seem desperate.
Due to the desperate state of most women in Nigeria there have been cases of the establishment of unsupervised and fake motherless babies home/ charity homes posing as good to the society but turn out to be the ‘devil’ we detest by committing crimes against the society and humanity. They are even in support of premarital sex and unwanted pregnancies in which cases they habour pregnant teenage girls to ensure they don’t abort the baby, nurture them through pregnancy period with the aid of nurses/midwives and once the child is born they ‘settle’ the young mother with monetary rewards ranging from 10,000 to 200,000 naira depending on their literacy level, the sex of the babies with an agreement to keep their mouths ‘shut’. The babies are later sold to desperate couples at the range of 500,000 naira to 1 million naira also depending on the sex of the child.
Child trafficking has become the third most rampant crimes after drug trafficking and financial/cyber fraud in Nigeria. This has created an avenue for immoral acts because young girls and ladies see it as a fast and quick way of making money. Instead of the risks of abortion, they take the option of having the baby and selling it off. Some so-called motherless homes are now established for the sole purpose of being a baby factory where men are employed to impregnate adolescent girls at a cost for both girl who is the carrier of the baby and the man who is the sower of the seed. Some girls who have unplanned pregnancy with fear of societal stigma go to doctors for abortion but some of them find themselves being kidnapped and later forcefully used as sex slaves for the production of more babies for sale. It is also suspected that some of these children and adults are sold to influential and devilish powerful people in the society for rituals purposes who in turn take some of their body parts for concoctions. The latest trend in this ugly business is that infansts are stolen from their families and sold to those in the illicit trade leaving their families in a painful and sorrowful state of mind.
Evidences have shown some desperate childless ladies have resorted to the more you look the less you see tactics where they use some technique to induce big tummy which show semblance of pregnancy. They use this deceptive pattern to deceive their husbands and close family members to believe they are pregnant only to go to an already pre-arranged nursing or baby factory home towards the end of nine months for their miracle babies purchased at a very cost so as not to be regarded as barren.
A case study that happened at Imo State not too long was a lady who told her husband that she was pregnant with twins after more than 10 years of childlessness. The expectant husband was so excited that he started making preparations for the day his bunch of joy will come. When they finally arrived, indeed twins were presented to the man as his children. The joy of the man knew no bound. He went for expensive shopping for his wife in Dubai lavishing millions on gold, diamond for the wife and even bought her a brand new car. The man planned an elaborate thanksgiving service, invited who is who in the political and business circle. On the day of the thanksgiving and party, all things set, the guest sited and music blaring then suddenly an incident happened. A team of armed police men stormed the party and in the confusion that ensued, it was discovered that the impostor mother of twins had pretended to be pregnant for 9months using the tummy inducement drugs on to connive with a nurse in one hospital to steal babies from two different mothers. It was another nurse at the same hospital who let the cat out when the real mothers of the babies could not be consoled by the cork and bull stories fabricated by the facilitating nurse. The celebration cut short, the man was shocked and he developed High Blood Pressure of which he could not recover from as he died few months after. There are other similar cases like that in many localities in Nigeria.
This inhuman activity is demoralizing to the society because of its negative effects. Most of the pregnant teenage girls who fall into the hands of operators of illegal motherless homes or kidnapped to such places are made to suffer the constant trauma of rape even after they have been rescued. The little unsuspecting children who are brought into the world only to be sold are also affected as they also fall victims of rape in the homes of the foster parents, being subjected to harsh working conditions and environment as they are made to work extra hours or made to hawk goods in major cities by their buyers. Also trafficked females are most times forced into prostitution in order to generate money for their buyers thereby exposing them to hoodlums, sexually transmitted diseases and adverse weather conditions; sometimes they are even killed and used for ritual purposes.
My advice to the perpetrators of this dastardly act is that they should desist from it or face the full wrath of the law which stipulates fourteen year jail term for any illegal buying and selling of children and those engaged in child and human trafficking activities in Nigeria. ‘To be fore warned is to be fore armed’. Also parents should not consider sending their pregnant teenage girls away from home because this exposes them to all kinds of dangers.
It is also encouraged that the Nigerian society should be educated about the ills of stigmatization of women without children because there have been cases of increase pressure from the society, mothers, mother in-laws, friends, etc that have made couples engage in the act without minding the implication of such illegal adoptions of children, instead they should be encouraged to go through the legal processes of adopting babies from government registered motherless babies and charity homes with intentions of raising the children as theirs and taking good care of them.
Members of the public are advised to be conscious of these crimes in their environment and report all suspected activities of some ladies or people claiming to be nurses, to the law enforcement agents for prompt actions. The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Person (NAPTIP) should periodically carry out enlightenment campaigns nationwide especially in high risk areas
There is indeed need for Nigerians to rethink this issue, for childless couples and for those that see childlessness as the end of the world that there are so many positive solutions. Finally, the bible explains the need of thanks and perseverance on the Lord. What would it profit a man to gain all the children in the world and lose his or her soul? Yours sincerely will continue to show gratitude to patriotic Nigerians who have been canvassing against stigmatization of childless couples and child trafficking.
