In the government building of Anambra State, Nigeria, a woman named Chioma hugged her baby boy Hope tightly, with tears in her eyes and repeatedly said, "This is my own son! You see, he looks exactly like my husband! "
She and her husband Ike sat side by side on the sofa, opposite Evy Obinabo, the local Commissioner for Women’s Affairs and Social Welfare. This female official, who has handled numerous family disputes, is frowning at the file at the moment-five relatives of Ike are still sitting in the room, and they all question: "This child is definitely not his own!"
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It started eight years ago, when Chioma and Ike got married and never got pregnant, and her husband’s family gradually lost patience.
"My mother-in-law called me a’ barren girl’ in front of the whole village, and my sister-in-law even introduced Ike to a new object." Chiaoma trembled slightly as she clutched the infant’s hand.
Last winter, she saw the small advertisement of "helping pregnant hand" on the telephone pole of the market, and found it like a straw.
The "clinic" hidden in the slum injected her with unknown drugs and announced "successful pregnancy" three months later. Chiaoma touched her flat belly with disbelief, but the clinic sent her B-ultrasound photos every week.
"Watching the little hands and feet grow up in the image, I am so happy that I can’t sleep," she suddenly became excited. "I am really pregnant for 15 months! Although it is longer than ordinary people, the child is particularly healthy! "
"Nonsense! The longest human pregnancy is only 12 months! " Ike’s cousin got angry.
Commissioner Obinabo signaled everyone to be quiet, turned around and opened the files in the computer-the screen was a photo taken by the police when they raided the clinic: boxes of baby milk powder were piled up in the simple ward, and more than a dozen pregnant women’s birth inspection records were posted on the wall, but all the names were forged.
It turns out that this is a black industrial chain. Liars first attract infertile women with "ancestral secret recipe", create the illusion of pregnancy with false tests, and buy babies from traffickers when the "due date" approaches. A survey by BBC reporters found that most of these babies came from orphanages in war-torn areas, and each child could sell for 5,000 dollars.
"Look at Hope’s birth certificate. It clearly says to deliver a baby in a public hospital." Chiaoma was still arguing, but her voice gradually dropped.
The Commissioner sighed and pointed to the official seal on the certificate: "This hospital was demolished three years ago."
Ike, who has been silent, suddenly hugged his wife: "Don’t be afraid, even if the child is not biological, we can go through the formal adoption procedure."
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Aminah (not her real name), 35, trembled and lifted her skirt at a market in a small town in southeastern Nigeria, revealing a slightly bulging abdomen. "The doctor said it was a miracle that the fetus was growing next to my liver." She stroked her stomach with morbid hope in her eyes.
Such scenes are being staged in many corners of the country-according to United Nations data, every woman in Nigeria has an average of 4.6 children, and women who can’t get pregnant are often regarded as "the curse of the family".
BBC investigative reporters lurked for three months and finally got into an underground clinic in Lagos. In the dark consulting room, the man who claimed to be the "master of gynecology" was showing three women ultrasonic images: "Look, this is your child’s toe, although it is not easy to find it behind the kidney."
In fact, these images are all fake materials downloaded from the Internet. Women who receive so-called "embryo transfer" have to pay 300 dollars equivalent to half a year in exchange for injecting a tube of turbid liquid.
"The burning sensation of the drug injected into the body convinced me that the treatment was effective." Fioma, who was deceived in Abuja, recalled. Three weeks later, her abdomen began to swell and her menstruation stopped. These physiological changes made her completely fall into a state of doubt.
What’s more frightening is that the clinic forbids them to contact with regular medical treatment-"those quack instruments will kill your angels", so the scammers threaten.
When the "due date" approached, the scam reached its climax. In a remote farmhouse in Kano state, women in labor were asked to pay an extra $500 for "God-given oxytocin".
Kira, a 26-year-old victim, described: "They gave me an injection and the whole world began to spin. I heard the baby crying in my trance. When I woke up, I had a suture in my lower abdomen and a baby boy in my arms. " Forensic tests showed that the concentration of sedatives in her body was enough to anesthetize an adult zebra.
According to a survey conducted by the Nigerian Child Protection Organization, most of these babies come from orphanages in war-torn border areas. Criminal groups buy babies for $200 each, and then sell them at ten times the high price in the name of "God-given son".
In the latest raid, the police found 47 test tubes labeled "embryo culture solution" in the freezer of a "fertility clinic"-the actual composition is normal saline mixed with hallucinogens.
"This is not a simple fraud, but a systematic mind control." Dr. Ngozi, a clinical psychologist, analyzed that swindlers accurately use the fertility worship in traditional culture to construct a complete virtual pregnancy experience in the victim’s consciousness through drug hallucination and group hypnosis. With the deepening of the investigation, 12 transnational trafficking gangs have surfaced, and their criminal networks have even extended to the European adoption black market.
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In a dilapidated hotel in Ihiala town, southeastern Nigeria, an absurd drama is staged on the second Saturday of every month: at 7: 00 in the morning, more than 20 women with bulging bellies have lined up in the corridor, waiting for the legendary "seeing off Guanyin" Dr. Ruth. The BBC investigation team pretended to be a couple who had not had children for eight years and knocked on the door of room 306 with an invisible camera.
At the moment when the door was opened, the waves of cheers came to my face-the woman who had just been diagnosed as "pregnant" was crying with her relatives and friends, and the room was full of glass bottles with the words "God gave the holy medicine". Dr. Ruth, wearing heavy makeup, sat on a faded velvet sofa with a forged certificate from a well-known medical college hanging on her badge.
"Congratulations on finding the right person!" She scanned our forged physical examination report. "As long as you inject this tube of genetic optimizer, you can not only get pregnant, but also choose the sex of your fetus!"
Seeing his wife’s hesitation, she immediately changed her strategy and took out a bag of crushed pills: "This is an ancestral pregnancy-promoting powder. With the same room every Tuesday and Saturday, I will see you next month." The asking price of this "basic package" is 350,000 naira, which is equivalent to the salary of local civil servants for three months.
We’ll make a follow-up visit in four weeks. Ruth slipped on the reporter’s abdomen with an imitation ultrasonic instrument, and the sound suddenly came out with a "thump" heartbeat. "twins! Or twins! " She pointed to the jumping light spot on the display-it was actually a pre-recorded video. When we asked for details, she lowered her voice: "Now we need to inject fetal nutrients, otherwise the baby will be malnourished."
This "premium package" is priced at 2 million naira, which is equivalent to a 12-fold increase in the amount of fraud.
The investigation found that the second floor of the hotel was actually a temporary delivery room. The woman who gave birth here recalled: "They gave me a pink potion, and when I woke up, my stomach was flat and there was a crying baby around me." What’s even more amazing is that the so-called "gene optimizer" is only vitamin B12 injection after testing, while the "pregnancy-promoting powder" is actually ground by antidepressants.
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It is not clear whether these women really believe these lies. But why do they easily fall into this naked scam? The answer may be hidden in the pregnancy rumors that are rampant on social media.
"Secret pregnancy" is a recognized phenomenon in the medical field, which means that women don’t realize that they are pregnant until the late pregnancy. But the BBC survey found that Facebook groups and pages are full of false information about such pregnancies.
A woman in the United States specializes in operating the "secret pregnancy" homepage, claiming that she has been pregnant for many years, and this experience cannot be explained scientifically. In the closed group of Facebook, many posts package this false "treatment" as a "miracle" in religious terms, claiming that it can help infertile women. These rumors make it easier for women to believe in scams.
Not only Nigerians participated in the group, but also women from South Africa, the Caribbean and the United States. Liars sometimes join groups and take the initiative to contact women who are interested in "treatment". Once someone expresses their willingness to participate, they will be dragged into a more secretive WhatsApp group, where the administrator will introduce the so-called "secret clinic" and its operation process.
In February this year, when the police raided Chioma’s "childbirth" clinic, the shocking picture revealed the bloody truth-behind the seemingly formal clinic building, there was a darkroom where 17-year-old pregnant women were imprisoned. Some of these girls were abandoned by their boyfriends, and some could not afford illegal abortion, and finally sold their own flesh and blood for 470,000 naira.
"They lied to me that their children would be sent to wealthy families to study." 19-year-old Wu Zhu (pseudonym) stroked the scar of caesarean section and sobbed. This girl, who was forced to be separated from her newborn, still has photos of "adopted families" sent by fraudsters in her mobile phone-it was later confirmed that they were all online maps.
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After four hours of intense inquiry, Commissioner Obinabo finally made a ruling. She pushed a pile of DNA test reports in front of Chiaoma: "Legally speaking, you are not the birth mother of this child." After saying his word, Chiaoma suddenly fell to his knees, and Hope in his arms burst into tears.
"Please look at this!" Ike took out his mobile phone trembling and played a heartbreaking video-Ricky Omar was singing a lullaby to a fake pregnant belly with wet tears hanging from his eyes. The man who has been married for eight years choked: "She reads to the’ fetus’ every day, knits more than 30 baby clothes, and even suffers from prenatal depression."
Finally, Obinabo sighed: "You can raise Hope temporarily, but on one condition-"She pointed to the poster of the African Convention for the Protection of Children on the wall. "If you can’t find your biological parents within three years, you must go through the formal channels for adoption."
When she walked out of the government building, Chiaoma wrapped Hope more tightly. On the telephone pole on the street corner, the small advertisement of "Bao Sheng Boy" rattled in the wind. Dr. Ngozi, a child psychologist, looked at their backs and said, "Let a fake mother go today, and ten real liars will emerge tomorrow. Unless we stop using the uterus to define the value of women, such a tragedy will never end. "
The data shows that there are 1,200 new similar scams in Nigeria every year, but only 3% of the cases are exposed. In neighboring Benin, there are even whole villages involved in baby trafficking. As Adoula, a volunteer of abduction, said: "When the whole society regards fertility as a female examination paper, cheating becomes an inevitable choice."
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Original title: "Eight years of seeking a child will eventually become empty? From the beginning of Nigeria’s "Songzi Clinic", a fake B-ultrasound instrument actually made a live baby.
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