A female suspect detained by the Police for allegedly operating a baby factory in Akudo Azoroh area of Rivers State, has admitted to selling babies for between N1.4 and N1.5 million depending on the gender. Security agents had raided a child trafficking facility in Aluu, Ikwerre Local Government Area, in the state and rescued six young pregnant women.

The 20 to 23-year-old women who were rescued were camping with the idea of trading their newborn children after they give birth to them. On May 31, the new State Commissioner of Police, Polycarp Nwonyi, made this announcement during his first press conference in Port Harcourt.

He added that during the raid, police arrested Azoroh and her accomplice, who ran the child trafficking centre. The suspect acknowledged operating a criminal enterprise, but said she distributed the newborns to families without their own children and not to ritualists.

The young women, according to Mrs. Azoroh, were already expecting when they came to see her, and said she pays them between N800,000 and N900,00 depending on how far gone they were in their pregnancies at the time they came and what gender the baby is when it is born.

“I have given out six children in the past, I started the business three years ago. I do not have boys who get the girls pregnant, they were already pregnant when they came; they came to me on their own,” she said.

“I give out the babies only to families who do not have children and not to ritualists; I give them out for between N1.4 and N1.5 million, depending on the sex of the baby, while I pay their mothers off depending on the stage of the pregnancy at the time they came.”