Inside Nigeria's secret baby farm business

Nigeria is a country where childless women are exploited because they are willing to go to any length to procreate and have indirectly become fuel for the countries baby farm.

A secret investigation was launched to go undercover and found out the story behind Nigeria's heart-breaking baby trade which is running alongside fake clinics and "miracle" doctors.

The hidden baby trade is a scam which exploits both couples looking for children and young single girls who are pregnant but cannot get abortions because they are illegal. Single mothers are often stigmatized and shamed by the society.

A pair of journalists pretending to be a childless couple visit a variety of unnamed clinics where bogus doctors attend to them and falsely diagnose them as both being infertile. In one case they are even told they can not conceive children with the man having “low sperm count” and a medical condition normally associated with women.

But the worst part comes later when they go to orphanages and clinics that act as brokers for illegal baby sales, where naive and desperate young mothers are convinced to hand over their newborn children for cash.

Various orphanages are not exempt from the baby trade as they pose as a front for organizations for baby selling. At one of the orphanages they were quick to offer a "fast-track" adoption to buy a newborn baby within weeks. The price was $4,000 for a girl and $5,000 for a boy.

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Why are couples and young girls falling victim?

Childless couples are seen to be taking this route and making this secret baby trade boom because they are desperate to avoid the public scrutiny and stigma of legal adoption.

Also, women who remain childless generally face prejudice where they can even be accused of witchcraft. This pushes women to try to achieve pregnancy by any means as legal adoption is not an option.

This pressures them to turn to "miracle" doctors who inject women with hormones to make their bellies swell and makes them appear to be pregnant. After 9 months the doctors send them to selected hospitals in Port Harcourt where a fake Cesarean scar is made and a child that is not theirs is presented to them.

In most cases, the parents are unaware that the child is not biologically theirs.

What are the government doing about it?

Despite the authorities attempting to crackdown on these phantom clinics and their fake doctors, these “miracle” clinics are still populating discreet suburbs of Port Harcourt, Aba, and Imo State.

It is said to be one of the fastest-growing areas of organized crime in the country.

Horrific stories of baby farms where young girls were being kept and repeatedly impregnated by their captors to fuel the booming child trafficking industry and the area where it’s found most are Port Harcourt.