A horrific fertility scam in Nigeria has been revealed by BBC Africa Eye through an investigation in the Anambra State of the West African country.
In a video report, BBC Africa Eye’s journalists went undercover to record footage of a woman named Doctor Ruth running a dubious facility.
Investigators reveal that women struggling to conceive end up supporting an underground trade of newborn babies. “The woman is convinced that if she visits a cryptic nurse or doctor, she is going to get an injection, a tablet or a solution that she would drin,k and after she goes home, she sleeps with her husband and then she is going to get pregnant,” Chiagozie Nwonwu, a BBC disinformation reporter, explains.
The fertility scam involves a network of scammers and fraudulent clinics that exploit desperate couples and women, in particular, with promises of “a miracle pregnancy” involving a fertility treatment which subjects them to false pregnancies and baby trafficking.
The investigator further revealed: “Scammers convince women that they are pregnant and only they can deliver the baby. Incredibly, they claim the woman could be pregnant for years while they wait for a rare and expensive drug to bring on the birth.”
Nwonwu further adds, “Your doctor will call you and say, come and give birth today.”
The scammers often pose as medical professionals, luring women with promises of miraculous cures. One such-Dr Ruth costs the victims a whopping amount of money for initial “treatment” which is 200 dollars and gives injections for “sex selection” as well.
These mysterious injections or concoctions lead to swollen bellies, mimicking the appearance of pregnancy and giving women the impression of being pregnant and carrying a child despite the lack of any genuine medical evidence.
The women are warned against seeking any kind of medical attention.
The fraudsters tell women that traditional medical tests would not detect the pregnancy because the fetus is developing outside the womb.
Although these are biologically wrong facts, psychological manipulation and the victim’s own desperation keep them trapped in a cycle of deception.
One woman named Chioma claimed to have “carried” a child for 15 months.
When the time comes for the “delivery” of the child, women are told that they need to pay an additional fee for “special drugs” to induce labor.
Many women who go through the scam actually end up with a child, and they insist they have given birth. While some say that they are given injections and told to push, others say that they wake up with a c-section-like incision.
Cryptic Pregnancy
The fertility scam often leverages the concept of “cryptic pregnancy,” a rare medical condition which is used by fraudsters to further deceive women.
Ify Obinanabo, Anambra State Commissioner for Women’s Affairs, outrightly called it out by saying that “cryptic pregnancy cannot exist without child trafficking.”
Journalist Yemi Adegoke, while talking to BBC News, revealed that the kind of Christianity practised in Nigeria has a lot of emphasis on miracles, which is why women get trapped in this scam easily.
Where do the children come from?
Yemi revealed that the children are trafficked, and there have been instances where young, vulnerable women are forced to sell their children.
In February, a raid by Anambra State health authorities exposed the facility housing women against their will, some as young as 17, who were forced to surrender their newborns.
Scammers exploit social media platforms like Facebook to spread misinformation about miraculous and cryptic pregnancies to target vulnerable women nationwide.
