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From Ogbonnaya Ndukwe, Aba
Abia State Government will soon clamp down on unregistered social homes and orphanages in the state.
The government said a facility, tagged ‘baby factory,’ raided by the police in Aba last week, was not registered with its Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
Commissioner in charge of the ministry, Mrs Ngozi Felix, told Saturday Sun that her office was charged with the responsibility of registering orphanages and social homes, so, the current administration, though new in office, will work to end the menace of baby factory.
She said “registered orphanages and social homes were meant to face yearly upgrades and revalidation. This ministry will always monitor their activities to ensure that they are following the guidelines given to them,” she said. On the illegal motherless home raided by the police in Aba, the commissioner said “all the 16 pregnant girls rescued from the centre are currently being kept in a safe place where they are being taken care of and receiving good medical care. “They were showing huge signs of malnutrition and other illnesses because they were not properly fed and taken care of.”
Felix further said the state would not keep quiet and watch illegal orphanages continue in business while deceiving the people, stressing that a proper investigation will be carried out to detect the locations of such unwholesome practices because the state currently has about 22 properly registered social homes and orphanages.
The commissioner restated that despite the obvious discovery that all the 16 pregnant young girls at the raided baby factory were not from the state, the ministry would keep taking care of them until it was directed to have the girls returned to their various states.
