There is a growing concern over the
adoption and institutionalisation of
cultures, habits and lifestyles that are completely alien to the African continent. On this list are issues such as same-sex marriage, surrogate motherhood, drug addiction and armed banditry among minors which years ago were read of as tales from other lands, and condemned with passion.
Today, most of these are gradually becoming acceptable norms. Infact, if not for the firm resolve of Nigeria’s National Assembly to outlaw same-sex marriage, it would have been norm. This was in spite of pressures from foreign lands to do otherwise, under the veiled pursuit of human rights.
Unfortunately, the scourge of baby factories are now a growing menace which seems bent on re-defining our socio-cultural disposition to normal marriage and child birth. Despised by Africans as sinful, surrogate motherhood is now being replicated in even more dangerous dimensions.
A recent security report alerted unsuspecting Rivers people of the discovery of yet another baby factory at Igwuruta, Ikwerre Local Government of the State, where, young women are allegedly quarantined, impregnated, and made to bear children that are later sold to needy members of the society.
This discovery by the State Police Command was made after similar factories were smashed in the South-Eastern part of the country. Apparently, with material benefit as key consideration, the scourge seems to increase across the country and at such frightening levels that should cause concern.
There are indeed indications that once dislodged, the operators of such baby factories quickly regroup and resume at another destination. This is perhaps why Igwuruta became host to the despicable baby factory scourge.
Sadly, these baby factories operate in communities where, fellow residents cannot claim ignorance of their activities. Another is the kind of patronage they enjoy among childless adults who never stop for once, to consider the health, social-cultural and mental repercussions to society and the participants.
In fact, due largely by the criminal nature of the trade, the gullible young mothers are subjected to crude health hazards, reduced  to sub-humans as slaves and years later are prone to mental degeneration. Some products of such criminal trade even end-up becoming a threat to their buyers.
These being strange times when, “Children” Kill their parents for no justifiable reason other than hate-filled, vengeful and destructive mental drive, the general public needs to be careful in condoning the existence and patronage of such baby factories. This is because, apart from those who genuinely need babies on account of childlessness, several others patronise such factories to buy babies for ritual purposes.
Unfortunately, unlike licensed orphanages where, legal adoptions are followed by proper knowledge of the background and bio-data of the adopters’, baby factories consider only the immediate financial rewards.
This is why it is worrisome to learn that even some orphanages have joined in the baby trade and abandoned known ethics that once governed their operations. These call for a closer monitoring of orphanages across the State and country to closely assess the procedures for approval to adopt babies.
While, we commend the Police expose’, as most timely, we think that this is also the right time for the appropriate institutions to legislate on the issue and spell out stiffer penalty for defaulters. We expect also that Child Rights activists will join the campaign against baby factories, to make the right impact, and in such a manner that the public would be properly sensitised on the dangers of the trade.
Rivers people must together resolve to abolish the abominable trade and save our heritage and future, because such criminal ventures are not only alien to our culture, they form part of stories often told from other lands at which the people often cringed.