Four months pregnant, Ugwu Christabel, a scared 17-year-old from Aku in southeastern Nigeria, looked to the heavens for help after her parents threw her out of their home.
Then she looked to the Tex Hospital and Maternity Home in nearby Enugu, where single, pregnant girls sometimes go for care until they give birth.
She didn’t have anywhere else to go.
“When my boyfriend realized I was pregnant, he warned me not to ever mention his name, and threatened me,” she said. Her parents could not stand the shame of their daughter getting pregnant out of wedlock.
What she thought was a sanctuary turned out to be what is locally known as a “baby mill,” which delivers infants only to sell them to would-be parents on the black market. Her baby was taken from her and sold against her will.
The baby mill industry has become a type of child abuse and human trafficking, say local officials and aid groups. More than 3,000 women and girls became victims of baby mills last year, and hundreds of people have been convicted in the past two years, said Magnus Obi, a human rights activist based in Owerri in southeastern Nigeria.
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