Orphanage home’s matron, others nabbed over alleged child-trafficking in Delta, Oyo

Policemen from the Warri area command in Delta State have arrested three suspects over the alleged child trafficking of a two-and-half-year-old baby girl.

Those arrested included, the matron of Divine Orphanage Home, Rosemary Johnson and Madam Rose IIogbo in Ughelli. The third person was a lady, who allegedly bought the child for N850,000 from Johnson and Ilogbo.

The arrest followed a petition by the president of Nigerian Child Welfare Fund, Comrade Joshua Omorere. Acting on the petition, detectives swung into action and arrested the suspects. The police also uncovered a baby-making factory in Agbor during the arrest.

IIogbo claimed she sold the child to one lady who had gone through adoption process in Ughelli. She also confessed that the matron of Divine Home Orphanage gave her another child to sell for N850,000 but people that were interested were offering N800,000, stressing that the matron of Divine Orphanage insisted it must be N850,000.

Meanwhile, a 50-year-old woman, Idowu Ademola, who allegedly specialized in trafficking foreigners for domestic services across the country, has been arrested by operatives of the Inspector General Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), in Ibadan, Oyo State.

The Guardian gathered that Ademola was arrested when officials of the National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), who were on her trail following reports of her activities, sought the assistance of the Inspector General of Police, Adamu Mohammed, to track and apprehend the suspect.

It was gathered further that Ademola ran into trouble when a 17-year-old Togolese, identified simply as Mary, who Ademola, trafficked to the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, to work as a house maid, sustained severe burns from a pressure cooker accident. It was learned that an official of NAPTIP was contacted when doctors at the hospital where the Togolese maid was being treated discovered that she was trafficked into the country illegally to work as a maid and her salaries were being paid Ademola.

When the suspect, Ademola, a widow and native of Okitipuka area of Ondo State, was interviewed, she said she was not aware that it was criminal to bring foreigners into the country and give them out as domestic help.

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