Nigeria's Baby Farmers

Africa Investigates - Al Jazeera

For an episode of Africa Investigates, Ghana's undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas and investigative reporter Rosemary Nwaebuni teamed up to investigate Nigeria's so-called "baby farms," or "baby factories," a form of child trafficking which "exploits couples desperate for a baby and young pregnant single mothers," says the article.

The team discovers "orphanages and clinics that act as brokers for illegal baby sales," and prey on "desperate" or "naive" young mothers, coercing them into handing over their newborn children for cash. The children are then sold into illegal adoption, sometimes taken home by unwitting childless couples who have been receiving false fertility treatments designed to simulate the effects of pregnancy and are made to believe these infants are their biological children. In some cases, young women were found to be kept in these baby farms and "repeatedly impregnated by their captors to fuel the booming child trafficking industry."