Some of the victims, some of whom are nursing newborns, are as young as 15 years old and are significantly pregnant.
The Rivers State Police Command has dismantled a child trafficking organisation operating in Port Harcourt, the state’s capital, in a move that is being hailed as a huge accomplishment.
On the weekend, the Command’s C4i Intelligence Unit Operatives raided two buildings in the towns of Igwuruta and Omagwa, both of which are in the Ikwerre Local Government Area of the state. These buildings were housing children who had been trafficked.
Others of the victims are as young as 15; some are extremely pregnant, and some are nursing young children.
To get them to agree, they were told they would get money based on the gender of the baby they gave birth to.
One of the victims claimed she was given $80,000 for a boy and $70,000 for a girl if she had a child.
Peace, one of the four detained individuals thought to be in charge of the gang, supports this claim. The accused asserted that she did nothing more than house and care for the pregnant girls in her home.
At the moment, both the victims and the suspects are in the custody of the CP Monitoring Unit. However, Grace Iringe-Koko, a police spokeswoman in Rivers, says that they will soon be moved to the State Criminal Inquiry Department for more investigation.
The children who were seized from a child trafficking network that was allegedly operated by a phoney reverend sister in the state were later reunited with their families in 2022.
