Abstract:
In many African societies, a premium is placed on having biological children as proof of
fertility. Couples unable to reproduce sometimes “harvest” babies from ‘’baby factory’’ a
term coined by the Nigerian media as a subset of child trafficking. Existing literature
have examined baby factory practices and its causes with little attention paid to the
gender context of the media reportage. This study, therefore, investigated the gender
nuances in the print media reportage of baby factory in southeastern Nigeria, the cultural
attitude towards it and the responses of actors, journalists and security operatives toward
the phenomenon.
The Agenda Setting theory and Motherism provided the framework, while descriptive
design was adopted. Reports on baby factory were generated from The Sun, The Punch
and Nigerian Tribune newspapers from January to June, 2014 when reportage on baby
factory expanded. The cities of Umuahia and Owerri in Abia and Imo states, respectively
being the hotbeds of baby factory phenomenon, were purposively selected. Key
informant interviews were conducted with the three newspapers editors and nine
reporters (non-crime) journalists. Four Focus Group Discussions were conducted with
newspaper editors, correspondents from a crime security association, Igbo males and
Igbo females. In-depth interviews were held with eight baby merchants, seven baby
clients, five rescued pregnant women in Owerri; six police officers, two officials of the
National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, four baby factory owners,
10 baby factory operators and eight community leaders in Umuahia. Data were
thematically and content-analysed.
Although journalists observed that they gave considerable coverage to the baby factory
phenomenon, their views were not confirmed by the number of reports in the
newspapers. There were 35 reports on baby factory in the period under review, of which
only 14 focused on the issue in southeastern Nigeria. The Sun newspaper, which allotted
more pages to crime and the South-East, had most publications (11), while publications
were fewer in The Punch (2) and Nigerian Tribune (1). The police set the agenda for the
media as journalists relied on press releases and parade of arrested suspects rather than
on investigative reporting, a situation the journalists blamed on the secretive nature of
the phenomenon. Abia State, with a higher rate of unmarried teenage pregnancy, had
more reports on baby factory. The media also placed more emphasis on baby factory as a
female crime than on men who abandoned their ‘barren’ wives and pregnant girlfriends.
The Igbo adults condemned baby factory as un-cultural, although the female respondents
showed empathy towards those arrested for baby factory crime. They, along with
security agents and actors in baby factory, blamed the Igbo culture of male heir
preference, dispositions towards childlessness, child adoption and unmarried teenage
pregnancy as facilitators of the baby factory reality, but the Igbo male disagreed.
The Nigerian print media underreported the issues of baby factory and cultural attitude
towards the phenomenon is divided along gender lines. The media should report more on
baby factory menace as a national crisis instead of projecting the phenomenon as a
female crime.
