Operatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) have rescued no fewer than 26 trafficked children from an orphanage home in Benue State and arrested four operators accused of selling children for prices ranging between N1 million and N3 million.
The agency’s National Press Officer, Vincent Adekoye, confirmed the development in a statement released on Sunday, noting that one of the suspects is a 60-year-old member of the Orphanage Owners Umbrella Body in Nigeria and the founder of a well-known Civil Society Organisation, the National Council of Child’s Rights Advocates of Nigeria.
According to Adekoye, the suspects were part of a syndicate that allegedly trafficked and sold more than 300 children under the guise of adoption, with 26 victims already rescued.
“In a breakthrough led by operatives of the agency, Markudi Command, the agency rescued 26 children, out of the over 300 suspected to have been trafficked and sold to different persons within Benue, Enugu, Lagos, Nasarawa, and Abuja, while about 274 others are still being traced, as investigations intensify to unravel the full extent of the syndicate’s activities,” the statement read.
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He added that a 34-year-old female accomplice and two other orphanage operators in Abuja and Nasarawa State were also arrested in connection with the case, as some of the trafficked children were recovered from their facilities.
“Some of the orphanages identified were used as holding centres where children awaited ‘adoption’ or sale. Four orphanage homes located at Kaigini, Kubuwa Expressway, Abuja; Masaka Area 1, Mararaba, by Abaca Road; and Mararaba, behind the International Market, have been linked to the syndicate and are currently under investigation,” Adekoye said.
He further revealed that one complainant claimed to have paid N2.8 million as an adoption fee and an additional N100,000 as a consultancy fee to a member of the trafficking ring.
“The identities of many rescued children had been changed, complicating tracing efforts,” the statement added.
The Director General of NAPTIP, Binta Adamu Bello, expressed deep concern over the revelations, describing child trafficking as a growing national crisis.
Through Adekoye, she condemned the involvement of some orphanage operators and organisations who exploit vulnerable people under the pretext of helping them.
“It is painful that some unpatriotic elements with recognised entities and status, now use their social class to deceive the already vulnerable people in the crisis-prone communities, traffic their children, most of whom narrowly escape death in the wake of communal or farmer–herder clashes, and sell them to challenged parents in the name of adoption without the valid legal consent of the parents.
“This is unacceptable, and those already arrested in connection with this wicked act shall be made to face the full wrath of the law.
“Our children are not commodities to be displayed in orphanages and sold at will to the highest bidders. This must stop,” the DG declared.