The Anambra State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Mrs. Ify Obinabo, has apprehended one Chinyere Chukwu, aged thirty-eight, and her first daughter, Joy Chukwu, aged seventeen, for selling her two sons.

 

This was achieved when the Commissioner posed as a buyer after getting a hint of the transaction.

Questioning the culprits at Professor Dora Akunyili Women Development Center Awka, the thirty-eight-year-old Chinyere stated that she, alongside her daughter, decided to sell her two sons due to economic hardship, adding that she has eleven children she can’t cater for.

 

On how much she told her buyer for the children, the suspect, Chinyere, said that since they are boys, they were kept at the price of one million naira each; but after serious bargaining she decided to sell the boys at one million, eight hundred thousand naira, instead of the initial two million naira.

 

The mother of eleven also revealed that she developed interest in the business of selling the children and decided to embark on such adventure after her neighbor successfully sold one of her children, noting that this was her first attempt at the business.

Chinyere Chukwu; who hails from Ozubulu but resident at Okija, said that she had only two children for her husband and got the remaining nine after her husband’s death, adding that ever since the husband’s death, she has n been able to give the eleven children adequate care and support.

 

Joy, the seventeen-year-old daughter of Chinyere, who is equally the eldest of the eleven children, added that the plan was to use the proceeds in advancing her tertiary education.

 

The Women Affairs Commissioner ordered that the remaining children of the suspect be taken into state government’s custody for proper care, while the neighbor that allegedly sold her child was also apprehended too.

 

Mrs. Obinabo further directed that after the neighbor must have been arrested, contact tracing for the child would follow in order to retrieve the child.

The Women Affairs Commissioner, who was visibly sad over the incident, reassured of the state government’s resolve to eradicate crimes in the state, and warned that anyone found engaging in such an act would be handed over to the police for prosecution.