Nigeria’s fertility rip-off: ‘Pregnant’ for 15 months

Chioma is adamant that Hope, the child boy she is holding in her arms, is her son.  After eight years of failed makes an attempt to conceive, she sees him as her miracle child.

“I’m the proprietor of my child,” she says defiantly.

She’s sitting subsequent to her husband, Ike, within the workplace of a Nigerian state official who spends the very best a part of an hour interrogating the couple.

Because the commissioner for girls affairs and social welfare in Anambra state, Ify Obinabo has loads of expertise in resolving household disputes – however that is no bizarre disagreement.

5 members of Ike’s household, who’re additionally current within the room, don’t consider Hope is the couple’s organic little one, as Chioma and Ike declare.

Chioma claims to have “carried” the kid for about 15 months. The commissioner and Ike’s household are in disbelief on the absurdity of the declare.

Chioma says she confronted strain from Ike’s household to conceive. They even requested him to marry one other girl.

In her desperation, she visited a “clinic” providing an unconventional “remedy” – an outlandish and disturbing rip-off preying on ladies determined to change into moms that entails the trafficking of infants.

The BBC was allowed by authorities to take a seat in on the commissioner’s dialogue with Chioma as a part of our investigation into the cryptic being pregnant rip-off.

We now have modified the names of Chioma, Ike and others on this article to guard them from reprisal of their communities.

Nigeria has one of many highest delivery charges on the earth, with ladies usually dealing with social strain to conceive and even ostracisation or abuse if they can’t.

Beneath this strain, some ladies go to extremes to understand their dream of motherhood.

For over a yr, BBC Africa Eye has been investigating the “cryptic being pregnant” rip-off.

Scammers posing as medical doctors or nurses persuade ladies that they’ve a “miracle fertility remedy” assured to get them pregnant. The preliminary “remedy” often prices a whole lot of {dollars} and consists of an injection, a drink, or a substance inserted into the vagina.

Not one of the ladies or officers we spoke to throughout our investigation know for certain what’s in these medication. However some ladies have instructed us they led to adjustments of their our bodies – comparable to swollen stomachs – which additional satisfied them they have been pregnant.

Ladies given the “remedy” are warned to not go to any standard medical doctors or hospitals, as no scan or being pregnant check would detect “the child”, which the scammers declare is rising exterior the womb.

When it’s time to “ship” the child, ladies are instructed labour will solely start as soon as they’re induced with a “uncommon and costly drug”, requiring additional cost.

Accounts of how the “supply” occurs differ, however all are disturbing. Some are sedated solely to get up with a Caesarean-like incision mark. Others say they’re given an injection that causes a drowsy, hallucinatory state during which they consider they’re giving delivery.

Both manner, the ladies find yourself with infants they’re speculated to have given delivery to.

Chioma tells commissioner Obinabo that when her time to “ship” got here, the so-called physician injected her within the waist and instructed her to push. She doesn’t spell out how she ended up with Hope, however says the supply was “painful”.

Our group manages to infiltrate one among these secretive “clinics” – connecting with a lady generally known as “Dr Ruth” to her purchasers – by posing as a pair who’ve been making an attempt to conceive for eight years.

This so-called “Dr Ruth” runs her clinic each second Saturday of the month in a dilapidated resort within the city of Ihiala, within the south-eastern Anambra state. Outdoors her room, dozens of girls look forward to her within the resort corridors, some with visibly protruding stomachs.

The entire environment is buzzing with positivity. At one level, enormous celebrations erupt contained in the room after a lady is instructed she is pregnant.

When it’s our undercover reporters’ flip to see her, “Dr Ruth” tells them the remedy is assured to work.

She presents the lady an injection, claiming it should allow the couple to “choose” the intercourse of their future child – a medical impossibility.

After they flip down the injection, “Dr Ruth” fingers them a sachet of crushed drugs in addition to some extra drugs for them to take at dwelling, together with directions on when to have intercourse.

This preliminary remedy prices 350,000 naira ($205; £165).

Our undercover reporter neither takes the medication nor follows any of “Dr Ruth’s” directions and returns to see her 4 weeks later.

After operating a tool that appears like an ultrasound scanner throughout our reporter’s abdomen, a sound like a heartbeat is heard and “Dr Ruth” congratulates her on being pregnant.

They each cheer with pleasure.

After delivering the excellent news, “Dr Ruth” explains how they’ll have to pay for a “scarce” and costly drug wanted for the child to be born, costing someplace between 1.5 and two million naira ($1,180; £945).

With out this drug, the being pregnant may lengthen past 9 months, “Dr Ruth” claims with disregard for scientific reality, including: “The child will change into malnourished – we’d have to construct it up once more.”

“Dr Ruth” has not responded to allegations the BBC has put to her.

The extent to which the ladies concerned genuinely consider the claims is unclear.

However clues as to why they might be vulnerable to such brazen lies can, partially, be present in on-line teams the place disinformation round being pregnant is widespread.

Cryptic being pregnant is a recognised medical phenomenon, during which a lady is unaware of her being pregnant till the late phases.

However throughout our investigation, the BBC discovered widespread misinformation in Fb teams and pages about this kind of being pregnant.

One girl from the US, who dedicates her whole web page to her “cryptic being pregnant”, claims to have been pregnant “for years” and that her journey can’t be defined by science.

In closed teams on Fb, many posts use non secular terminology to hail the bogus “remedy” as a “miracle” for many who’ve been unable to conceive.

All of this misinformation helps solidify ladies’s perception within the rip-off.

Members of those teams aren’t solely from Nigeria, but additionally from South Africa, the Caribbean, and the US.

The scammers additionally generally handle, and publish in, these teams, enabling them to succeed in out to ladies expressing an curiosity within the “remedy”.

As soon as somebody expresses readiness to start out the rip-off course of, they’re invited into safer WhatsApp teams. There, admins share details about “cryptic clinics” and what the method entails.

Authorities inform us that to finish the “remedy”, the scammers want new-born infants and to try this they search out ladies who’re determined and weak, lots of them younger and pregnant, in a rustic the place abortion is illegitimate.

In February 2024, the Anambra state well being ministry raided the ability the place Chioma “delivered” Hope.

The BBC obtained footage of the raid, which confirmed an enormous advanced made up of two buildings.

In a single have been rooms containing medical gear – apparently for purchasers – whereas within the different have been a number of pregnant ladies being stored towards their will. Some have been as younger as 17.

Some inform us they have been tricked into going there, unaware their infants could be bought to the scammer’s purchasers.

Others, like Uju, which isn’t her actual identify, felt too scared to inform their household they have been pregnant and sought a manner out. She stated she was supplied 800,000 naira ($470; £380) for the child.

Requested if she regrets her determination to promote her child, she says: “I’m nonetheless confused.”

Commissioner Obinabo, who has been a part of efforts in her state to crack down on the rip-off, says scammers prey on weak ladies like Uju to supply the infants.

On the finish of a tense interrogation, commissioner Obinabo threatens to remove child Hope from Chioma.

However Chioma pleads her case, and the commissioner finally accepts her rationalization that she is a sufferer herself and that she hadn’t realised what was occurring.

On this foundation she permits Chioma and Ike to maintain the child – until the organic mother and father come ahead to assert him.

However until attitudes in the direction of ladies, infertility, reproductive rights and adoption change, scams like this may proceed to thrive, specialists warn.

You possibly can watch the iPlayer documentary right here and a YouTube model of this story right here.