Sure, here it is. It was useful to go through it again, because they do briefly mention that people pay for the babies, so I was wrong to say it wasn't mentioned. But obviously that's what drives the trade and somebody's making a lot of money out of it.
Anna Foster (Today presenter): ….It is the second case in three months that the BBC has reported of a baby being unlawfully brought to the UK from Nigeria. The government says falsely claiming to be the parent of a child to facilitate entry to the UK is illegal. Those found doing so will face the full force of the law. Across Africa, women being bullied or exploited into having babies to be sold is an increasing problem, and I've been speaking to Henrietta Coker about it. She is a British born, British trained social worker of Nigerian parents, and she's visited around 35 African countries as part of her work on this topic. She told me first of all about the stark reality of what the term ‘baby farming’ really means.
Harriet Coker (Social worker/investigator): What we're basically talking about is young girls who are either pregnant, have got nowhere to go, so they go into these mother and baby homes; or sometimes we're talking about young girls who aren't pregnant at all, and they just get kidnapped, get locked up in these organizations, they're raped, they're in prison, are forced to give birth, usually over a period about five years, at which point, sometimes they're let go. Unfortunately, some of them actually end up dead.
And what you have is those places being able to continue, being able to function and make money, because people are paying for these babies. So as soon as they close them down, they move. All of a sudden, Ondo State, the last couple of months, that's come up with people bringing children into the UK with documents that they don't have, and they're often not related. I'm not really sure how you stop this to be frank.
AF: It is one of the most primal human instincts. People wanting children who can't have them naturally, whatever the reason might be, there are big emotions at play here. That is one of the big challenges that you're facing.
HC: I mean, I think the desire to be parents is really strong. There are a disproportionate number of black children in the UK foster care system, but those children tend not to be babies, and adopters want babies. If you're looking at the African community, I think adoption is only just really beginning to be a thing. There used to be quite a stigma to it. If you attend one of these miracle clinics, or these kind of fake infertility clinics, you know, they can organize paperwork for you. So sometimes they give women injections and herbal remedies that allow this [?stomach swell] and some of the women do actually believe they're pregnant. I'm not sure that all the people buying these babies really understand what these organizations do, you know, how they breed babies. Some of these young girls are kids that can be as young as 13, 14. I don't think they think about those elements of it.
AF: The way you describe it as well, Henrietta, is… particularly the way you describe some of the places that you've seen…. it is unimaginable that a lot of people, a lot of these people, don't know what is going on behind the scenes. Maybe they just choose to not acknowledge it because it would bring an end to their journey. What should the UK Government usefully be doing to try and stop this from happening, to try and make it plain to people, if this is something they try and do and they feed that system, that it won't be allowed?
HC: The first case that I actually dealt with, when the Nigerian police went in there, she had 33 children. The woman had outstanding charges from five other West African countries where she was shipping children through. So I think there needs to be generally raising the awareness, perhaps DNA testing for children coming in, and I think encourage people to adopt in the UK system. I'm not saying that no international adoptions should ever happen. I think they should, but I think there are proper channels in Nigeria or whichever country, because I don't believe that it's just happening- in fact, I know it's definitely happening in other West African countries, and I should imagine it's happening across the global South, because the driving factors for this type of baby farming, it comes down to poverty, lack of women's rights, and in lots of ways. You say, What can the British government do? I'm not really sure, because I think the issues start in the countries where children are born.
AF: Henrietta, thank you so much for your time.