11 May 2013

Baby factory found

8:57 am on 11 May 2013

Seventeen pregnant teenage girls and 11 babies have been rescued from a house in south-eastern Nigeria.

Police are now are looking for a woman suspected of planning to sell the babies. The girls claimed they were fed once a day and were not allowed to leave the house.

They said they were all made pregnant by one man, who has since been arrested

The BBC reports "baby factories" are not uncommon. Correspondents say poor, unmarried women face tough choices if they get pregnant in Nigeria, often facing exclusion from society.

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons says desperate teenagers with unplanned pregnancies are sometimes lured to clinics and then forced to turn over their babies, which are sold for up to $US6400 (£4200) each.

The babies can be sold for illegal adoption, used for child labour or prostitution or sometimes killed with their body parts used for ritual purposes.