How My Husband Forced Me To Baby Factory – Calabar Rescued Victim |The Source

By Stanley Ekpenyong, Calabar

A young woman, Grace, has told a pathetic story of how she found herself as an inmate of a Baby Factory in Calabar.

Grace, one of the victims rescued by operatives of the Cross River State crime bursting outfit, Operation Akpakwu, said  her husband drove her out of her matrimonial home when he told him of her pregnancy.

She did not, however, say if her husband denied responsibility of the pregnancy, or drove her out because he was not ready yet for a baby because of poverty.

She, however said when she was driven out by her husband, she was directed to the Baby Factory by a friend who told her that while there, she would be taken care of until she delivered.

Even at a closer look, there was nothing to indicate that the  compound where Grace and other victims were rescued, housed a “factory”.

Like other houses at Usoro street, Anantigha, near Calabar South Local Government Secretariat, it bustled with human activities.

However, it took the eagle eyes of the operatives of  Operation Akpakwu, to discover that, situated in the compound was a baby making factory, housing 24 pregnant young ladies and 11 children.

Major Stanley Ikpeme of the 13 Brigade Military Police, Calabar, on behalf of the Brigade Commander, Brigadier-General Muhammed Abdullahi, handed over the suspects, alongside the pregnant girls and children to officials of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP.

The head of Operations, NAPTIP, Oba Jacob, who received the pregnant girls and children, and the two suspects arrested, said the agency has the responsibility to not just prosecute but to rehabilitate and reintegrate the victims back to the society.

Narrating her predicament, just like Grace, another victim, who  identified herself as Loveth said: “They are taking care of me and giving me N2000 per week. I went there because they will take care of me and I did not want to abort the baby”

It is not known, however, if NAPTIP would investigate the veracity of the story told by Grace, for example, in order to find out why a husband would drive his wife away because she got pregnant. And, if so, what punishment awaits such a husband.

Meanwhile, one of the suspects, Fidelia Edem, has absolved herself of any complicity saying she wasn’t aware of the baby factory.