According to Nigerian authorities, at least 35 adolescent females were rescued from a ‘baby factory’ hotel where they were kept as sex slaves and their infants were sold on the black market.
The teens were rescued from the Gally Gally hotel in the southern state of Anambra on Monday, where they had been exploited as’sex slaves, prostitution, and a baby factory,’ according to state police spokesperson Tochukwu Ikenga.
Hundreds of under-aged women and newborns have already been liberated from illegal maternity facilities known as “baby factories,” where women are compelled to bear children for sale on the underground market.
He said that four of the females were pregnant, and that the hotel had firearms and cash.
According to Ikenga, investigations are still underway, and the girls would be handed over to government authorities for rehabilitation.
He said that the hotel’s owner was on the run, and that three suspects had been detained on charges of kidnapping the adolescents, sexual enslavement and prostitution, and running a baby factory.
‘At the conclusion of the inquiry, all suspects will be charged in court.’
‘Factories’ are mainly tiny illicit establishments masquerading as private medical clinics that lodge pregnant women and sell their infants.
Young mothers have been detained and sexually raped in many cases before their infants are sold on the black market.
Unmarried pregnant mothers are sometimes offered healthcare, only to have their infants taken away. Women are raped and made pregnant in other countries.
In April, authorities in Lagos raided a baby factory and two unlicensed orphanages, rescuing over 160 infants, some of whom had been sexually assaulted.
In February, Lagos police revealed to local media that they had unearthed a case in which a pregnant mother went to a private residence to have her baby born, only to have the infant stolen away and sold.