A new report by the U.S. government shows that some mothers in Nigeria drug and “rent” their infants out to street beggars to increase the beggars’ profits. The practice is especially common in Lagos, according to the report. 

The report titled ‘2023 Trafficking in Persons Report: Nigeria’ stated, “In southern Nigeria, especially Lagos, some women drug and ‘rent’ their infants out to street beggars to increase the beggars’ profits.”

The report authored by the State Department also revealed that human traffickers sell children to exploit them in forced labour and sex trafficking.  

“Recruiters operating out of unregulated clinics work with enforcers to control the women through childbirth,” stated the report. “The traffickers then sell the children, sometimes with the intent to exploit them in forced labour and sex trafficking.”

It highlighted that ‘baby factories’, widespread in the South-East, “is driven by poverty and a lack of opportunity for young girls” and the demands of “the illegal adoption market and cultural pressure for large families in Nigeria,” stressing that “recruiters operating out of unregulated clinics work with enforcers to control the women through childbirth.”

According to the report, traffickers exploit victims in sex trafficking, as well as in forced and bonded labour in street vending, domestic service, artisanal mining, stone quarrying, agriculture, textile manufacturing, begging, and in the tie-dye sector in the North-West and South-West of Nigeria.  

It also disclosed how some individuals posing as teachers in Quranic schools coerce students to beg.

“There are reports that teachers and actors posing as teachers in Quranic schools coerce students to beg,” the State Department explained. 

It added, “Observers report worsening poverty related to the pandemic’s economic impacts may have increased the enrollment of these schools, as well as the risks of exploitation of the children by teachers, businesses, and local community members seeking labour.”