Law, Power, and Justice

MONDAY 11 AUGUST 2025

Childless Cat Lady Working Away in one of the Sub-basements of the Ministry of Snark.

        I am a news junkie.  I have been one all my life.  I grew up sitting at the dinner table every night listening to political discussions, and infrequently political arguments, since it was the 1960s my mother’s views of race and appropriate forms of social protest were different (to say the least) from my father’s. 

        I still usually spend hours every day listening to and reading news reports.  But today?  I cannot turn on the television.  It I just too depressing, even for me.  Trump is either staging a coup in the form of a federal take-over of Washington, D.C., or he is conducting a practice exercise for the real thing with which he will delight us at a later date.  Whatever.  In addition to this, Trump is supposed to meet Putin in Alaska on Friday to talk about Ukraine, or at least that is what they are saying is going to happen. 

        Trump, however, is going to betray Ukraine.  That is what is going to happen and it will be both heartbreaking and enraging.  The Ukrainians have fought for years, valiantly, for all of us, and Donald Trump (a scummier, less worthwhile person history has never produced) is going to throw them to the wolves.  The only way I am going to survive the next three years is blind, rageful determination to see this hateful, greedy, crude, crass, tasteless, vulgar, cheap, ignorant, moronic, tawdry, repulsive, shallow, ignorant (did I say that?), bullying, (and I could go on) monster either dead or out of office.  And even that outcome is wishful thinking.  I have no doubt that if Trump is or can be made to be upright in 2028, he will be the Republican nominee.  There is no legal system in this country.

        On a happier note, the cats have had a good day, snoozing in their catio.  Designing and getting the catio built is the most successful thing I have ever done in my life.  It is a screened in porch with two tiers of shelving that they can lay on, sit on, roll around on while they watch a yard full of birds and squirrels (who are now completely unafraid of them).  It’s like Catflix, watching catflix all day.  The boys (seven of them) stay out there almost all day even though it’s hot as hell in coastal Georgia right now.  It occurred to me earlier this afternoon when I was lamenting the fact that Hiram Bernard (youngest cat) was downstairs and not curled up at the foot of our bed while I worked, that the cats might stay out in the catio all day to get away from us because we are so needy.  That’s pathetic.  “Mommmmm, please.  I just can’t take non-stop petting.”  “Give it a rest, can’t you?”

Nigeria

        Yesterday when I was trying to avoid the news, I happened on a 2025 Netflix Series called “Baby Farm.”  It is a Nigerian drama series that centers around a seemingly benevolent NGO in Laos that takes in impoverished young women and turns them into “makers,” baby makers.  The NGO sells their babies.  “Does this happen?” My partner Mike asked as he passed briefly through the room, looking for something (keys, credit cards, flea administration records).  “I assume so,” I replied.  “It says inspired by real events.”

        Unfortunately, I later confirmed that baby farming does indeed exist in Nigeria.  Poverty is one reason.  Young girls find themselves on the street and have little recourse other than to accept food and shelter from anywhere they can get it.  Groups set themselves up masquerading as orphanages, charities or maternity homes.  The young women often don’t even know that they are involving themselves with an illegal operation which will take their babies away and sell them on the black market. 

        The fact that the organizations seek to appear as charitable institutions makes them more difficult to find and shut down by the authorities.  And, Nigeria does not have a reputation for having a very good legal system anyway.  In the series, an especially poignant scene depicted a street walker, or prostitute, telling the main character, Andanna, about the fake NGO, and taking her to it.  The prostitute was paid for steering the young girl into this virtual prison.  I am sure this happens frequently – one sexually exploited woman leading another sexually exploited woman into even more structured and confining sexual exploitation.

        Poverty contributes to the situation of both sets of women.  Sexual exploitation is almost the only way to survive on the streets.  Every time Andanna tells those who run the NGO she wants to leave, they say: “To go where?”  That’s all it takes.

Notes: Nigeria and Baby Farming

• In July of 2025, the Nigerian Anambra State health ministry raided a suspected baby factory, arresting pregnant women and shutting down the facility.  In 2024, the ministry raided a similar facility and rescued girls as young as 17. 
• In the UK, has restricted adoptions from Nigeria since 2021 due to fears of illegal trafficking in children (FreedomUnited.org).
• In 2024, British authorities confronted a “fake birth story” involving a woman already in the UK.  Authorities deemed that this was an attempt to smuggle a Nigerian infant into the UK (Evans, 2025).
• The business of baby trafficking has been characterized as a “dirty” and “profitable” business (Human Rights’ Pulse, 2021).  While there are human trafficking statistics, records of child trafficking are harder to find.
• There are other socio-economic factors that are involved in the profitability of the business.  Childlessness is considered a humiliation in Nigeria and women can be pressured and abused by their own families for infertility.  There is a high demand for male babies especially. 
• The Nigerian legal adoption process is long and complicated, stricter and more expensive.  This drives some couples to resort to the illegal market.

Reading Around: Nigeria and Baby Farming

(3/16/21) “Police Uncover Baby Factory, rescue 4 pregnant girls in Anambra.  Guardian.

BBC (9/30/19) Nigeria police raid Lagos Baby Factory. 

• In one raid in Nigeria in 2018, 160 children were rescued. 

BBC (4/26/18) Nigeria “Baby Factory raided in Lagos.”

UNESCO REPORT 2006

Atlomo, Susan (7/8/21) Child Harvesting: A Closer Look.  Human Rights Pulse.

• After a four-year-old girl was reported stolen while returning home from school, police discovered a facility where four pregnant girls were being held.  Men on a motorcycle had grabbed the child and left with him. 
• Illegal baby factories are on the rise. 
• The social stigma of out-pof-wedlock pregnancies often forces young girls to leave their families or leads to them being thrown out. 
• The patriarchal Nigerian society. 
• Sometimes women are kidnapped and raped.  They are then trafficked as prostitutes or child laborers. 
• “The human trafficking industry itself generates about $150 billion annually.”

Lyons, Margaret (6/24/25) “Baby Farm Is a Harrowing Nigerian Drama.  New York Times.

Evans, Rebekah (2025) “Nigeria’s “baby factories’: a Hidden Crisis.  The Week.

Obaji, Philip (5/3/20) Survivors of Nigeria’s baby factories share their stories.  Aljazeera.