Mary’s Perpetual Help Orphanage accused of human trafficking
Mary’s Perpetual Help Orphanage accused of human trafficking
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2010
June 11, 2010
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Despite the fact that Delta State Police Command has pronounced the Mary’s Perpetual Help Orphanage, based in Asaba, illegal for operating babies’ factory that allegedly trades and traffic in children, over 25 children are still at the mercy of the operator.
The command said its investigations revealed that the orphanage sells babies for profit and keeps pregnant girls, who it “coerced into signing off their rights on their babies upon delivery in an affidavit”.
Police spokesman, ASP Charles Muka, in a signal on May 11, 2010, warned unsuspecting members of the public from patronizing the orphanage
He said: “On April 23, 2010, at about 2pm, ‘A’ Division, Asaba, received information that one Brother Johnmary Ihezue, of Usonia Street, Asaba, was operating an illegal orphanage called ‘Mary’s Perpetual Help Orphanage’.”
While Muka insisted that the orphanage enslaves children and maintained that “through interrogation, a month-old-baby girl was recovered at a Motherless Babies’ Home in Obosi, Anambra state”. The suspect, Ihezue, who has allegedly paid his way out of the police net, denied the allegation.
Muka disclosed that at the receipt of the tip-off, men of the command started investigations, combing the said address and smoking out the proprietor (Ihezue), “having discovered that he uses the home as a cover up to sell new born babies”.
The command prevented the Nigerian Compass from interrogating the six pregnant girls, among who is a 14-year-old girl, it claimed to have rescued when Ihezue was arrested. The command said: “The suspect has made useful statement and is currently helping detectives at ‘A’ Division, Asaba, in the investigations.”
But no matter what the command claimed, the suspect disagreed with it. Ihezue is parading the certificate issued him by the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), with registration number 301793, signed by one Dr. Dennis Ude Ekumankama (Registrar-General) before starting off the orphanage.
While justifying its claim, the command asked: “If that is the case, why did we have to evacuate pregnant girls from his orphanage to Shelter for Victims of Domestic Violence and Abuse, Asaba for rehabilitation?”
Muka warned Ihezue to spare the command further utterances which might be used against him, when he would finally appear in court.
Meanwhile, investigations by the Nigerian Compass revealed that the suspect (Ihezue), is an ex-Catholic Monk.
Ihezue is operating the orphanage in conjunction with an Ilorin (Kwara State) based congregation of Catholic Reverend Sisters.
When the Nigerian Compass visited the orphanage, a nun who identified herself as Sister Martina, flanked by another colleague, fully robbed in a reverend sisters’ regalia, tried to stop the Nigerian Compass from taking their pictures. She disclosed that their congregation (Our Lady of the Missionary Sisters of Perpetual Help) in Ilorin, deployed them to work as “novice”, in the orphanage.
Martina said that although the suspect and the Catholic Bishop of Issele-Uku Diocese, Rt. Rev. Michael Elue were not on good terms, the claim that the orphanage manufactures and trades in babies must be substantiated.
She said: “The news that we sell or allow girls to deliver babies here baffles me. If the owner is doing that elsewhere, we are not aware, definitely not here. It has not happened since we resume here over five months ago. The children we have here are about 25, and the number is still intact. Here is not a hospital! Pregnant women don’t deliver here! We only care for babies.”
She revealed that they were made to understand last year, when delegates from the state’s Ministry of Women Affairs and Community Development visited the orphanage, that the proprietor only registered the home as a Non-Governmental Agency (NGO) and not as an orphanage. She added that their congregation in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the suspect, banked on fully taking over the orphanage, “as brother Johnmary is preparing to return to the monastery”.
She said that the congregation agreed to the MoU because the suspect was then suffering from partial stroke and the need to care for the children became difficult.
But residents of Usonia described the condition of the children in the orphanage as “pathetic”, as one testified that pregnant women do deliver in the orphanage but that it is difficult to ascertain whether the babies were taken away by their parents, left in the orphanage or sold.
Whatever the case maybe, Brother Johnmary and the police will have to meet in the court of law, for him to prove that the police were wrong and had needlessly tarnished his image for a crime he did not commit. The police on the other hand will have to prove that Johnmary had under-aged pregnant girls in his orphanage, who were allegedly forced to sign off their babies after delivery.
Posted by Banished Babies at 3:23 PM
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