even after she had collected the amount both parties agreed upon. That was to mark the genesis of the problem of the home. When contacted on phone, Lady Ifeoma Okolo said she went to the hospital with the 5 babies (initially at Nkpor but later Onitsha) but did not say anything about the pregnant girls harboured there.
A source at the scene confided to the press then that the home takes care of pregnant young girls and about 12 of them were there as at last week she visited and a good number of babies present. She claimed that the home specializes in selling babies to baby seekers.
However, a woman (name withheld) who hails from Enugu State, confessed to buying a baby from the home at the cost ofover N400, 000, praying that she be forgiven as she was not the only one that engaged in that even as she blamed her predicament on a protracted quest for a baby boy. She argued that in Igbo land a family without a baby boy was not regarded, explaining that she had given birth to a baby girl. She denied ever thinking of using the child for ritual.
This paper learnt though it is rampant in the South-East and south-south, as it also happens in Lagos for instance in 2005, in a street named Janet Fajemigbesin Street, in Amuwo Odofin, behind old Durbar Hotel-near Festac, Lagos, teenage girls charge N150,000 and N200,000 per baby. Twins sell for N450, 000. The boys who impregnate the girls are paid N10,000 to