The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has sealed the Priesthood Orphanage in Karon Majigi Village, Abuja, over the alleged trafficking of 23 children aged one to fourteen.
The children who were rescued from the orphanage are believed to have been trafficked from Plateau State.
Adedayo Benjamins-Laniyi, FCTA’s mandate secretary for women’s affairs, handed over the children to Caroline Dafur, Plateau commissioner for women’s affairs, in Abuja on Monday.
Dafur stated that three of the children had escaped due to the orphanage’s poor conditions.
She stated that officers from the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) discovered the escaped children and reported the case to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).
Dafur stated that the FRSC officials took the children to Human Rights Radio in Abuja, who then notified the Plateau government and the FCT Women’s Affairs Secretariat.
She said:
“We came in yesterday and on reaching here, we were told that they went to church. We kept going from one church to another, looking for them until we found them in a Deeper Life Church.”
“From there we went to the orphanage and what we saw in that place is not supposed to be called an orphanage.
“The place is just so unkempt. Nine girls were sleeping in a very small room with just two mattresses.
“For the boys, they were in a small room too, with two mattresses just on the floor. It is so pathetic the way human beings treat their fellow human beings in this country.”
She thanked the mandate secretary for assisting in evacuating the children to the Karu Children’s Home.
Benjamins-Laniyi, for her part, said an investigation was underway to determine the facts of the alleged trafficking.
She stated that FCT Minister Nyesom Wike had directed the secretariat to profile and recertify orphanages operating in the nation’s capital.
she said:
“Using this as an example, one of the first things I have done is to get approval for the recertification of orphanage homes in Abuja.”
“The minister has approved that there will be a full thorough reprofiling and recertification of anything that has to do with orphanages in Abuja.”
The mandate secretary stated that the secretariat is already working with Dafur to reunite the children with their families.
She also mentioned that some of the children had been in the uncertified orphanage since 2019.