TheCable

The Department of State Services (DSS) on Wednesday bust a child trafficking syndicate that specialises in bringing underage children from the northern part of Nigeria to serve as house-helps across the southern part of the country.

Thirty-six children, whose ages range from five to 14 years, were also rescued during the operation by the security personnel.

The group, which operates a private school in Yenagoa, comprises three pastors and a woman, who has five biological children.

They were identified as Dauda Nurugada, from Kebbi; Anthony Onwebeyi, from Anambra; Benaalim Isa-Garba,, from Kaduna and Tombra Alazigha, from Bayelsa.

They own a charity organisation, which was saddled with the task of distributing the children to different homes where they will serve.

Findings revealed all a client needs to do to get the service of a child is to pay the sum of N25, 000.

Addressing reporters in Yenagoa, Friday Onuche, deputy director of the Bayelsa state command of the DSS, said the children were rescued from different homes in Bayelsa, Anambra and Rivers states.

He said the kingpins operated under the guise of missionaries and non-governmental organisations and target vulnerable children.

“There is the need, therefore, for members of the public to be sensitised on the need to be circumspect in the way they give their children or take in children from such unsuspecting modern slave traders,” he said.

Some of the children, who narrated their ordeal to reporters, said that though the group had an arrangement with their parents to place them in schools.

“The pastors came to our villages in Zaria and convinced some parents, who are unable to train their children in schools. When we got to Bayelsa they took us to different homes,” one of the children said.

“The woman I was asked to live with used to assign me to the farm and I also sold water for her. I no longer went to school. I started school at the beginning of the term but she told me to stop school now.”