A couple from Anambra State, but residing abroad (names withheld) have lost the sum of N750,000 to an orphanage, Crowther Motherless Babies Home in a bid to genuinely adopt a baby from the orphanage which is located in Onitsha.
?The state commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Ego Uzoezie who disclosed this to LEADERSHIP SUNDAY, however, refused to disclose the names of the couple, saying the latest attempt on the couple was the attempt to sell off another baby girl to them using a fake court order which the couple took to the commissioner for verification after paying N600,000.
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?Anambra State police command on a tip off from the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, stormed Crowther Motherless Babies Home, Onitsha, foilied the sale and arrested six suspects at the home, who attempted to sell the baby girl who was in their care to the couple.?
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?Uzoezie said “the couple was out to adopt a baby following the due process and rules stipulated for adoption, and had already paid N600, 000 to the fraudsters before realising that the court documents were forged, leading them to raise an alarm to the Ministry for fear of being implicated in child trafficking”.
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Grace Esebameh, a nurse at Crowther Motherless Babies Home who was arrested for the sales of babies allegedly trafficks the babies into the home for sale through the help of a medical doctor also based in Onitsha, who quarters pregnant young girls and pays them compensation after delivery, while using the orphanage to sell off the babies.?
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She admitted knowing the couple, and that they paid the doctor an initial N380,000, she also admitted processing the adoption orders through one Amaka, ?but insisted she did not know the business is called child trafficking or was an offence. The management of the home however, denied being aware of her deals, affirming she brings babies to the home and takes them away too.
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LEADERSHIP SUNDAY gathered that about four teenage girls who were still nursing wounds from cesarean section(CS) without their babies were arrested at Concord Hospital, Onitsha where Esebamehallegedly receives her ‘supply’ of babies when security agents stormed the hospital. The girls however claimed that their babies died immediately after delivery but later opened up to the security agents that they were compensated for them.?
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Following this development, the commissioner for Women Affairs ordered that “henceforth, all court orders for adoption must come to the ministry for verification before anyone can adopt a child in the state”. She lamented that there were too many fake court orders in circulation as well as proxy adoption which was not allowed in the Nigeria. ?
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It would be recalled that NAPTIP recently closed a home in Obosi, near Onitsha over allegations bordering on sales of babies. Incidences of sales of babies LEADERSHIP SUNDAY reports, have been on the rise in Anambra, with the state habouring the largest number of illegal homes in the country.
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